Six Nations: Bemand on goal of Ireland becoming top two side in the world

Ask Ireland coach Scott Bemand what he wants from his team in this year’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations, and he is in no doubt, with words such as ‘progress’, ‘development’ and ‘advancement’ punctuating almost every sentence.

Ireland’s women have certainly progressed since the former England women’s attack coach took over in August 2023. First they won WXV3, then finished third in the 2024 Six Nations, a finish that ensured their place at the 2025 World Cup having missed out on the 2021 edition, and before the year was out they beat New Zealand in 2024’s WXV 1.

Ireland finished third again in the 2025 Six Nations and then lost a narrow World Cup quarter-final to France in Exeter. With that progress banked, Bemand is ready to take the next step with his team.

“We’ve come third in the last couple of (Six Nations) competitions, and we’ve only won two games in each of those,” he told RugbyPass.

“We want to take and progress results. We’ve got three home games. We would want to be getting our best version out there, but we want to win games. We want to win games at home, and we’ve got two really tough games away from home (versus England and France), but we believe we’ve advanced our game.

“We’ve just got to keep raising our performance levels and at some point we want to break into World Cup contenders and the top four in the world, of which England and France are those in the Six Nations. We want to go deeper into games. We want to get more points, and put more pressure on those teams, and at some point, we want to break into the top two nations.”

Bemand recently signed a contract extension to take his tenure up to the end of the 2029 World Cup, a sure sign that he has faith in the team and the Irish Rugby Football Union’s development of women’s rugby.

Under Bemand’s leadership, Ireland have established themselves among the chasing pack, with the likes of Scotland and Australia. Last year, they lost to all four World Cup semi-finalists – France in the Six Nations and World Cup, England in the Six Nations, New Zealand in the World Cup pool match, and Canada in a World Cup warm-up international.

What then does Ireland need to do to join that group?

“If you get opportunities in the 22 you need to convert and against bigger humans and better drilled organisations we need a little bit more punch in there,” he said. “That’s something we’ve been working on over in Ireland. We think we’ve got another layer to our game.

“To go deeper into competitions, you need more depth. To win a World Cup, including your warm-up games, you’re looking at going seven, eight games, so you need more depth in key positions.

“We’ve got some really exciting talent coming through in Ireland. We’ve got to blood those girls, and we’ve got to get those girls in and performing, so that in four-years-time, we’ve actually got a team that’s got the experience level and the depth to produce something special in the World Cup.”

Ireland’s progress is being underpinned by their club’s progress in the Celtic Challenge. For the third season in a row, Wolfhounds, one of two Irish teams, won the tournament, and for the second time in three years they defeated the other Irish side, Clovers, in the final.

The competition has allowed Ireland’s young talent to begin their progress into elite rugby, with Ireland’s Aoife Wafer, last season’s Six Nations Player of the Championship, a sign of what can be achieved with the number eight now full-time with Harlequins.

“The Celtic Challenge has actually been really important for us, and how we develop those two groups that we use,” Bemand said. “The Wolfhounds and The Clovers have got quite young packs. We’ll see the benefit of that in two-years-time, those players will come through. The back-lines are a little bit more experienced, so that allows us to hone our telepathy and our understanding of what people are doing at any given moment.

“We work in tandem with the coaches, so we are at every session. We are involved in the session planning. We help support the coaches in terms of what they need and how they deliver it. They have autonomy over putting some of their stamp on it, but we have the ability to grow our training identity through them and the Celtic Challenge.

“The girls have been training really hard behind the scenes, the bits that people see are the games. In terms of the training exposures, the playing exposures, they should allow us to hit the ground running for what’s going to be an unbelievable opportunity against England at Allianz Stadium.”

If ever there was a baptism of fire, then Ireland face it in Round 1 of the Championship when they take on England at Allianz Stadium. It will be the Red Roses first match there since they won the World Cup in September.

So far, over 70,000 tickets have been sold, and while Ireland conceded 15 tries in an 88-10 defeat two years ago, Bemand and his team have no fears about returning to south-west London.

“The players are so excited,” he said. “This is the space we want to be operating. We want to be in big events. We want to be in front of the best stadiums, in front of the biggest crowds.

“We’re still a relatively young group. Two years ago, we played at Twickenham (Allianz Stadium), and we were a young group with low experience. We’re now a young group, but with higher levels of experience. We know we’ve got players that have been there, that have worn the trousers and they’ve kind of got the experiences to lean back on.”

Once their assignment with the world number ones is over, Ireland then take on Italy in Galway, France in Clermont-Ferrand, Wales in Belfast, and finish against Scotland at the home of Irish rugby, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

“It’s a really significant milestone for us,” Bemand said. “We want to keep growing the game in Ireland. We want to take people along with us, we want people on board. We’ve got an opportunity through the Six Nations games to get people more excited.

“We’ve currently sold 15,000 tickets. We want to grow that. We want to be close to between 20 to 30 thousand by the time we get there. The better the performances, the better the results that we get, and then hopefully people will be enticed to go out and vote with their feet and go and buy tickets and come to support us.”

Fixture

Womens Six Nations

England Women

06:25

11 Apr 26

Ireland Women

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