The stage was all set for Ireland, so why did we witness such a poor performance?

Heading into the 2026 Women’s Six Nations, there was so much, from an Irish perspective, to look forward to.

Ireland exited at the World Cup quarter final stage but out-played France for long stretches and could feel suitably aggrieved at some late calls that swung against them.

This Six Nations, Scott Bemand had Erin King and Dorothy Wall to call on, again. Aoife Wafer was fully fit and turning heads at Harlequins. This is a maturing side and one that has claimed decent scalps in the past 18 months.

There were also three big home games to look forward to. They face Italy at a revamped Dexcom Stadium, in Galway, on April 18th, welcome Wales to Ulster’s Affidea Stadium, in round four, before closing out with a first-ever standalone Women’s Test match at Aviva Stadium, against Scotland, on May 17th.

“It is so exciting,” Ireland winger Anna McGann declared. “These are huge, groundbreaking moments for women’s rugby. I really feel, in the last year or two, there has been a turning point.

“We’ve got more people on board, we are getting the backing and we are starting to fill stadiums… It’s a brilliant time for our game, and you can really feel it. There’s pressure with that, but pressure is a privilege. We’re in a privileged position, so we’ll keep going for it.”

There was so much to look forward to. The only shame was that first hurdle being so bloody high.

England are the standard bearers in women’s rugby, and rightfully so. Before Saturday’s game at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, they had won 33 straight games, including last year’s romp to World Cup glory. John Mitchell’s side are gunning for an eighth consecutive Six Nations title and have not lost in the competition since March 2018.

They were missing a few World Cup heroes but could still boast Ellie Kildunne, Sarah Bern, Jess Breach, Amy Cokayne and Alex Matthews in their starting XV.

The only ones that did not seem fearful of taking on the world champions in front of 77,000 supporters were Ireland’s players. But disappointingly, after their mediocre performance, demonstrated by only one Ireland player making RugbyPass’ team of the round, the pre-tournament buzz seems to have faded to a low hum.

I took a visit to the IRFU’s High Performance Centre (HPC), in late March, and sat down for chats with McGann, Aoife Dalton and Jane Clohessy. All three were full of that same fervent zeal I had felt when I interviewed the likes of Wafer, King and Amee-Leigh Costigan, in recent months.

Ireland’s mantra is ‘The Green Wave’. This surge of support, energy and optimism the players generate and fans feed off. “The Green Wave is real,” King insisted to me, last year.

It may have started off on a slide-show, a gym wall stencilling or an affirmation within the playing group, but it has completely taken hold. The players are locked into this steely-eyed cult of positivity. I spoke with another couple of rugby correspondents, that afternoon, and all reported similar vibes. This team was hell-bent on a first Test win over England since 2015.

Walking out of the HPC, they almost had me believing a shock was on the cards. Almost.

As a portent of worrying things to come, Eve Higgins narrowly avoiding a collision with teammate Brittany Hogan before shelling Holly Aitchison’s kick-off fit the bill. It was the first in a long, frustrating list of sloppy Irish errors. Ireland turned the ball over 14 times and conceded 13 penalties. Handling errors beset them, at crucial periods, and O’Brien was clearly under instructions to kick more, even if it meant gifting England easy possession.

England were far from perfect but they have a catalogue of excellent players and know what is required to get into winning position. They went after the Irish lineout, had a devastating rolling maul and pace, particularly from Kildunne and Breach, to run from deep and do damage.

Two moments summed up how frazzled Ireland were. On 19 minutes, trailing 7-0, England put together six punching phases, off an attacking lineout, and were positioned right under the Irish posts. Hogan was standing pillar, right by the post, when Wall placed a hand on her back. She must have assumed Wall was going to fill in, as she vacated her defensive position. Wall then did likewise and, as both Irish players shuffled right, Bern crashed over into that empty space.

For Bern’s second, Ireland were so worried about being mauled over their tryline, again, that they switched off for an England dart up the blindside. Wall, who had a quiet game, was fixing her jersey, ambling towards her posts. When Wafer wrapped up Lucy Parker, the ball bounced for Claudia Moloney-MacDonald and she dashed for the corner. King got to the winger but Wall, now aware to the danger, was too late to stop Bern.

“We were probably a little bit spooked in the first half,” McGann would later admit. Ireland trailed 21-0 at the break and the match was threatening to sprint away from them. In total, Ireland’s 23 players combined for only 90 carries. The ball-carrying threats of King, Wall and Wafer had only eight, between them. The positive they will cling to is showing some fight and responding with tries from McGann and King, late in the piece.

Tough as it was to hear, it was apt that former Ireland internationals, Lindsay Peat, Paula Fitzpatrick and Hannah Tyrrell got stuck into an error-strewn performance, over on RTÉ. “Ireland will be disappointed with their performance,” said Tyrrell. “They didn’t really fire many shots against an England side that weren’t at their best. We shot ourselves in the foot with too many mistakes, particularly in the first half.”

“If you look at it,” Peat argued, “Ireland are ranked fifth but the other four sides all made the World Cup semi-finals, and there is a big gap there. It was an opportunity to lay down a marker. Whatever about the results, we wanted an 80-minute performance… we wanted to see a continuation of this upward trajectory. So, it is disappointing.”

“There was a level of expectation in this studio,” Peat added, “and, I’m sure, that Irish dressing room, and it wasn’t reached.

Fitzpatrick was perhaps the most truthfully blunt of all. “We got England on a bad day, which is exactly what we wanted but, unfortunately, it looked contagious with the amount of errors that were there,” the former flanker commented. “They have not had that long together (two weeks in camp) but I don’t think that excuses some of the basic errors that we saw, out there.”

Going back over my interview with Dalton, who was Ireland’s best player, ahead of that England game, one admission stands out. Before Saturday’s game, the largest Six Nations crowd she had played to was 15,559 at Stade Marie-Marvingt, against France, in the 2024 Six Nations.

“It is daunting enough,” she admitted. “We walked out to the pitch and the stadium kind of came up, and around. It was like, oh my God. The noise was just… we couldn’t even hear anyone in the warm-up. It was just deafening… It was amazing but, at the start, I was just like, ‘Jesus, what is going on here?’”

The biggest crowd Dalton, and most of her Ireland teammates, played in front of was 30,017 at Brighton’s Amex Stadium, at last year’s World Cup. England were regularly playing to audiences that size at that tournament and waxed Canada in the final, with 81,885 fans packed into Twickenham.

From just shy of 16,000 in 2024, to 30,000 last year and now lining out for anthems and facing the world champions with more than 77,000 supporters watching on. Daunting. Spooked. You would only be human if it took a while to get your head around the sheer scale of events.

Ireland’s top women players find themselves in a similar position to the men, three decades ago, when the game switched from amateur to professional.

The IRFU, and other unions, need to find meaningful, challenging club competitions. Until then, it is open to some of their leading lights heading to England to earn a better crust, and compete in a league that eclipses the Celtic Challenge for quality. Much like the mid to late 1990s, Irish talent is jetting off to test themselves against some of the best English, Canadian, Scottish and Welsh players in the PWR. “It’s going in the right direction,” Clohessy observed, “but, for me, it still has a way to go.”

There has been talk of possible invites for Irish sides to an expanded Premiership Women’s Rugby league. The IRFU would love for a women’s version of the URC or Champions Cup to get off the ground, but a five-year commitment to competing in the PWR may be the soundest medium-term option. You just need to look at Munster Rugby seeking voluntary redundancies or Moana Pasifika walking the obscurity tightrope to know the game is not exactly awash in money and investors.

Fixture

Womens Six Nations

Ireland Women

09:40

18 Apr 26

Italy Women

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Ireland’s best chance of drawing record crowds to their home games, trying to fill Aviva Stadium for Scotland’s visit, inspiring the public and stocking coffers will rely on their ability to string some wins together.

They should have too much for Italy, in Galway, this weekend, before a game they will have been looking forward to – possibly even more than Twickenham – for the past seven months. France are in transition, awarding six debuts during their 40-7 win over the Italians. They welcome Ireland to Stade Marcel Michelin at the end of this month. Ireland have World Cup revenge on their minds.

That will be the game to settle whether ‘The Green Wave’ is a resonant flurry of buzz words or a pounding force that can truly crash over teams.