Scott Bemand: Ireland ready for more after battling past Spain

By Duncan Bech, PA Rugby Union Correspondent

Ireland coach Scott Bemand insisted his team are ready for tougher tests after reaching the World Cup quarter-finals with a 43-27 victory over Spain at Franklin’s Gardens.

Hard-fought bonus-point wins against Japan and a determined Las Leonas have secured a spot in the knockout phase, but first tournament heavyweights New Zealand must be faced in Brighton.

“To get a bonus-point win – at the start of the day I would have bit your hand off for that,” Bemand said.

“Getting into a World Cup quarter-final was something we wanted to achieve and we wanted to achieve it at the first possible chance, so two games in.

“The group are buzzing and we’ve just been told it’s the most points Ireland have ever scored at a World Cup – and it’s only game two.

“The longer you go in this competition, the media, the fan base – everything magnifies. It’s exactly where we want to be.

“All roads lead to Brighton now and we want to go and challenge a World Cup contender.

“Part of our growth is that we want to fire more shots, we want to take games against the World Cup contenders deeper.

“This win against Spain will be a massive game for us just in terms of continuing momentum. I’m sure anybody that plays us will take us seriously.

“That’s a good place for us to be and we’re just going to keep getting a bit better and a bit better.”

Spain excelled at times and, like Japan a week before them, took charge early in the third quarter to cause Ireland real trouble – only for the favourites to find the skill and resilience needed to close out victory.

“It won’t always be perfect, unfortunately, and there are going to be some edge-of-the-seat moments but that’s the beauty of women’s rugby,” Bemand said.

“But what we are doing now, we’re scoring tries and we’re creating in a variety of ways, so we’re creating different problems for people to solve.

“We’ve never professed to be the finished article, but scoring seven tries shows that we’ve got some firepower and some tools that we can call upon.

“It’s now about calling upon them consistently and more in the right spaces, which will let us go longer and deeper into these games.”