'The girls are champing at the bit,' says Tierney

Ireland women’s head coach Tom Tierney feels his side are in a good place as they head into their second Women’s Rugby World Cup match this Sunday.

Tierney’s women overcame Australia in their WRWC opener in a tie that was in the balance right to the final whistle, with his side now overwhelming favourites to go on and follow up on that with a win over Japan.

"We've planned accordingly. We've got a couple of good days under our belt since the Australia game. The girls are champing at the bit. They're really looking to putting in a good performance," said Tierney.

"If it goes wrong we have contingencies to get ourselves out of trouble, like we did last Wednesday and in previous games. It's nothing new to us, if things aren't going to plan. That's what happens in matches.

"You can't expect to have it perfect all the time. It was a big occasion on Wednesday night and thankfully we got over the line. We're just looking forward to the second game and imposing our game on the Japanese as early as possible."

Tierney also highlighted that that turnover ball as well as set-pieces are likely to be pivotal to Sunday’s game.

"If you look at the stats, you're looking at a lot of turnover ball. And a few of those were unforced errors. Set-piece was consistent in the lineout but it wasn't as consistent in the scrum.

"So, set-piece and turnovers are key areas for us. But also from a defensive perspective we're looking at getting a bit more line-speed, just to put teams under pressure and not let teams come on top of us."  

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