Bemand Backs New Coaches To Add A Lot Of Value

The Ireland Women (sponsored by Aon) return to competitive action on Saturday week, kicking off Irish Rugby’s 150th year celebrations by playing Australia at Kingspan Stadium, before making their WXV1 debut in Canada with matches against New Zealand, Canada, and the USA.

Given the level of opposition they will be exposed to in WXV’s top tier, and with the Rugby World Cup less than a year away, Bemand is understandably keen to build on what was achieved in his first season, and there are key areas he is targeting with his extended coaching staff.

“Post WXV and post Six Nations, there was some expertise that we wanted to come in and add to our coaching set-up,” he explained, speaking on the first day of camp at the IRFU High Performance Centre in Blanchardstown.

“On-pitch performance, we’d moved it in the right direction. Clearly there’s still bits that we always want to get after, and we found ourselves in WXV1 which is fantastic.

“Going into a World Cup, we’re going to have to be able to fire shots against tier 1 opposition, so there’s some bits of the game that we wanted to get after.”

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Heading into the 2024/25 campaign, Bemand is now assisted by former England international Alex Codling as forwards coach, while the equally highly-rated Hugh Hogan has come on board as a defence coach, and Exeter Chiefs legend Gareth Steenson is the kicking coach.

Denis Fogarty provides continuity in his third season as Ireland’s scrum coach, and 2013 Grand Slam winner Maz Reilly, a first-choice second row with Ireland for many years, is adding to her coaching development as a World Rugby coach intern within the group.

The Lewisham-born Codling, a lock during his playing days, has been part of the Irish Rugby system before as Ulster Academy forwards coach and Ulster ‘A’ head coach in 2015/16, during which time he was also assistant coach with the Ireland Under-18 Schools team.

In recent weeks he has already been working at the IRFU HPC with players from the Women’s High Performance Programme, and Bemand believes his former team-mate, who was most recently Newcastle Falcons head coach, will get the best out of Ireland’s forwards.

“I played with ‘Codders’ a good few years ago now at Harlequins. An absolutely outstanding operator and deliverer on the technical and tactical side of the set-piece.

“He’s a real lineout ‘nause’, for want of a better word. He loves it. So being able to bring somebody of his levels of experience, he’s not previously coached in the Women’s game, but like I said, we’ve worked together before.

“He kind of saw this as a massive opportunity for him to impart knowledge and make a meaningful impact for a group.

“Certainly to further develop and enhance his own coaching skills, so it’s going to be a great relationship. Already you can see him within the centralised programme.

“The work he’s been doing in the programme has been outstanding. In terms of detail and whatever, you can see the girls really buy into it.”

Hogan is back in his hometown of Dublin after a stint as assistant coach (defence and contact) with Japanese club Suntory Sungoliath in Tokyo. His main body of coaching work has been at Leinster, where he was contact skills coach for a four-year period.

Bemand continued: “Hugh Hogan comes in, he’s been involved in coaching set-ups with Leinster where they’ve won Heineken Cups. So the credibility of what he brings with him is fantastic.

“He’s detailed, he’s got a lovely intensity about him. He’s met probably over half the group, from the centralised programme, that he’s been in and co-delivering over the last few weeks.

“Really, really excited to see what he can do with our defence this year. We’re adding expertise. We said we’d try and start some momentum, and now we’ve got to keep building this momentum and keep trying to accelerate where we can.”

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Meanwhile, Steenson was one of the most accurate kickers in the English Premiership during his long playing career with Exeter. He retired as a Champions Cup and two-time Premiership winner, and was part of the club’s coaching staff until this summer.

The former Ireland Under-21 captain has recently moved back home to Northern Ireland with his family, and Cliodhna Moloney reckons Steenson, who worked with the Academy and senior Women’s and Men’s teams at Exeter in recent seasons, is a really good fit for the Ireland Women’s programme.

“It’s a really exciting time to be involved in Women’s rugby,” said Exeter hooker Moloney, who returned to the Ireland squad midway through the 2024 Guinness Women’s Six Nations, scoring a try in the final round win over Scotland.

“I love to hear that Scott’s allowed to put his (coaching) team together, and bring resources in that he knows work, and that he works well with.

“I haven’t worked much with Hugh or Alex, but I’m looking forward to getting the chance to work with them.

“Obviously Gareth Steenson has come in too, and I know him. He was at Exeter Chiefs and he used to work across both of our (Men’s and Women’s) programmes.

“So. I’m really excited for the kickers here to get an opportunity to work with him as well. I think it’s a really good move forward in that there’s lots of people coming from the Men’s game into the Women’s game now.”