Hogan: There’s Momentum And We’ve Got To Take Hold Of That

Defence coach Hugh Hogan is anticipating another big ‘physical battle’ when Ireland come up against hosts Canada in the second round of the WXV1 tournament on Saturday (kick-off 3.45pm local time/11.45pm Irish time – live on RugbyPass TV).

Ireland’s superb 29-27 win over New Zealand certainly made the rugby world sit up and take notice, and now the challenge is to back up that performance against Canada, the 2024 World Rugby Pacific Four Series champions.

It should be an intriguing battle in Langley at the weekend, as these teams face off for the first time since Canada won 48-7 at the UCD Bowl back in November 2016. Nicole Fowley is the only member of the current Ireland squad who was involved that day.

“Canada went through the Pac Four competition undefeated back in May,” said Hogan. “They won that competition by beating New Zealand and Australia. They’re in a place where they’re showing real confidence in how they play the game.

“Obviously they’re hosting WXV1 so they’re at home as well, and they had a very strong performance against France (winning 46-24 in Vancouver last weekend).

“We definitely have huge respect for the way that they play the game and we know it’s going to be a physical battle, so we’re going to have to front up.”

That is exactly what Scott Bemand’s charges did in their WXV1 opener, scoring five tries from eight visits to the New Zealand 22, making 20 dominant tackles and winning nine turnovers, and finishing the game with 63% possession and 95% territory during the last 10 minutes.

Ireland’s rucks-won percentage stood at 98.9%, and 58% of those were between 0-3 seconds. From a defensive perspective, Brittany Hogan stood out with 19 tackles made from 20 attempts, Neve Jones made 14 tackles and two assist tackles, and Linda Djougang landed four dominant hits.

Hogan, the former Leinster contact skills coach, came on board in August as part of a new-look Ireland coaching team under Bemand. In a short space of time, he has seen the players’ hard work pay off with victories over two top five-ranked teams, Australia and New Zealand.

Looking back on their winning start to WXV1, he explained: “It starts with how hard the girls work off the pitch. The players are incredibly diligent. We’re turning the page, last night (Monday) they’re in watching footage of Canada.

“Today we were able to start with the preview piece, so when we come to the pitch there’s real clarity, and we’re able to make sure that we can focus on what’s going to be really important for the weekend.

“It was an enjoyable game against New Zealand and we had to fight for it. It’s always pleasing when you have a tight game and you go out and you win it in the end, or you deserve the victory.

“We were really pleased with that, but we were able to turn the page quite quickly in to Canada. It’s only a six-day turnaround, so again we’re building up that excitement back for this weekend.”

With the players afforded the time and space to celebrate together and reflect on beating the reigning World champions, Hogan was delighted that some of their families were able to share in this special occasion. They are also drawing inspiration from the messages of support from back home.

Celebrating a win is really important. Some of the players had family members over and it was really cool that they could share that with their families.

“Because of the (eight-hour) time difference to home, Ireland was kind of waking up after the game and people got a huge number of supportive messages.

“It’s amazing to see the support and the care that people have at home for the group and what they’re doing. It’s an awesome opportunity now to build on that. There’s momentum and we’ve got to take hold of that.”

Ireland came under intense pressure early on against New Zealand, falling behind to an Atlanta Lolohea try. The girls in green had full belief in themselves, and scores from Aoife Wafer (2) and Neve Jones had them leading before Katelyn Vahaakolo’s effort before half-time.

Bemand’s resilient, young side dug deep during prop Niamh O’Dowd’s sin-binning in the third quarter, with the Black Ferns retaking the lead but crucially having two tries disallowed.

With their bench proving influential, last year’s WXV3 winners took the spoils thanks to an Erin King double from close range, and Dannah O’Brien’s decisive final conversion, which went over off the right hand post.

Even though she was off the pitch for those 10 minutes, the 24-year-old O’Dowd finished as Ireland’s second leading ball carrier (17), carrying for 74 metres, and put in two dominant tackles and three cleanouts, as well as being part of a strong scrummaging display.

It was only the Wexford native’s second international start, and Bemand praised her afterwards, saying: “Some of the linespeed from a prop that Niamh puts in is incredible. It looks slightly different to the Men’s game but she can keep repeating.”

Taking on an in-form Canada, who are chasing their fifth straight win and are now ranked second in the world, demands that Ireland – climbing up to sixth this week in the World Rugby rankings – raise their game further.

Hogan says there are areas they will target for improvement, with the competition format and touring environment giving the players and Bemand’s coaching team the opportunity to lay the groundwork for further growth heading into a Rugby World Cup year.

“A massive positive for us (against New Zealand) was our calmness, our clarity. We didn’t deviate from the plan, we had belief in what we wanted to go about,” admitted Hogan, who captained St. Mary’s College to All-Ireland League glory back in 2012.

“We knew New Zealand would test us, and we were stretched at times but we were able to actually handle them. We were able to create opportunities.

“Test rugby comes down to moments. We gave ourselves chances by creating moments, and the players had the courage in their convictions to go and take that moment at the end of the game.

“There’s always things that we can improve on. There’s aspects of our defence we can get better. There’s layers to our attack that we’re going to try and build in over the course of this competition, so we’re looking to improve again on Saturday.”