‘We’re Focused And Hungry To Achieve Our Goals As A Group’
Eimear Considine during Ireland's squad session at the IRFU High Performance Centre. ©INPHO/Ryan Bailey
As the rescheduled Women’s Six Nations games draw closer, Eimear Considine says the Ireland squad have narrowed their focus on bringing a match intensity and sharpness to training to ensure they are primed and ready to step back into the Test arena against Italy next month.
After a break of almost six months, Ireland returned to group training at the IRFU High Performance Centre in recent weeks and Adam Griggs‘ squad will continue to step up their preparations for a busy Autumn schedule with a series of two-day camps, the first of which takes place on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September.
Each training session serves as an important building block for Ireland, as they bid to rediscover the cohesion and fluidity they had built up during the opening rounds of the Championship before it was suspended due to Covid-19 back in March, and Considine and the players understand the importance of raising the standards in training.
“It’s great to be back,” the Ireland and Munster winger tells IrishRugby.ie. “It’s the second one-day camp we’ve had and there’s a great buzz around. It’s getting everyone back in and used to the systems again. We’ve had a good break so it’s just been about getting back in, refreshing the minds and getting used to playing with each other all over again.
“We’re building for the camps that are ahead. A lot of these sessions are precision sessions so we’re focusing on our basics so when we go into those two-day camps that everything is really accurate, really sharp and we do everything at 100%. We’re focused on making this a really positive lead-in period for us.”
𝙇𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🛠 👊
The Ireland Women’s XVs squad are training hard in preparation for October’s rescheduled @Womens6Nations games against Italy and France 🙌 🟢 #IrishRugby #ShoulderToShoulder pic.twitter.com/UKngarpMNI
— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) September 16, 2020
Ireland return to action against Italy in Round 4 on the weekend of 24th October before making the trip to France to face Les Bleus in the concluding round of the 2020 Championship. From there, Griggs’ side will turn their attention to December’s Rugby World Cup 2021 European Qualifiers.
“The schedule may have changed, but our aim is still the same,” Considine says. “We have Italy and France ahead of us and we’re hoping for two wins from those games. We want to build and push on from the two wins we had over Scotland and Wales earlier in the year and as a group we’re focused and we’re excited on the task ahead. It’s going to be a busy period but we’re all relishing the hard work ahead.
“The Lockdown period made us all realise how special it is to pull on the green jersey and we’ve seen it since coming back to training, every one of the girls are hungry and motivated to achieve our goals as a group. The first focus is on bringing the best version of ourselves to training and that way we can be in the best possible shape for the Italy game.”