Griffin expects Ireland to bounce back

Ciara Griffin expects the Ireland "family" to bounce back in Thursday's must-win Women's Rugby World Cup 2017 match against France.

Ireland need to win Thursday's third and final Pool C game against Les Bleus at the Belfield Bowl to qualify for the semi-finals, after their narrow victories over Australia and Japan.

France top Pool C on 10 points after bonus-point victories over Japan and Australia, with Ireland on eight points after they failed to pick up bonus points against the Wallaroos and the Cherry Blossoms.

Ireland beat Australia 19-17 and Japan 24-14, but the French whitewashed Australia 48-0 and thrashed Japan 72-14 in their opening two matches.

And Griffin says the Ireland squad have spoken about what needs to improve against the French, after their slack displays in the opening two games.

"One of the things about this team is we're a massive collective unit, we're very close together, we're like another family," Griffin said.

"We're very good at talking to one another and helping each other out. We'll help one another with analysis, anything we can improve on."

The UL Bohemians and Munster flanker says the players need to cut out the basic errors that dogged their opening two matches. 

"There are lots of things to work on, but we won't panic just yet," Griffin continued. “

"We're realistic, we had a lot of handling errors, unforced errors too, which is something we didn't want to happen, but we've spoken about it and we want to rectify it. 

"Japan had really good line speed, and maybe we should have kept our depth a bit more as well."

Ireland beat France 13-10 the last time the two sides met, in the Six Nations at Donnybrook in February, but Griffin says that match will count for little on Thursday.

"That win was a massive boost for us, but that's the Six Nations, this a totally different tournament," the 23-year-old continued.

"It's up to us now to regroup, work on our accuracy, fix our mistakes and go hard at the French. 

"We prepare for every game the same way, we prepared for Australia the same, Japan the same, and we won't do anything differently for France. 

"They're very strong, they've a good pack, they're well able to ship it wide, so it's up to us to have good line speed, and just be physical."

The three Pool winners will qualify for the last semi-finals, and they will be joined by the best runner-up, which is likely to be the loser of Thursday's England v United States Pool B encounter.

eir Sport's coverage of the Women's Rugby World Cup 2017 is sponsored by Aon.

Ireland face France in their third and final Pool C match at UCD's Belfield Bowl on Thursday, 17 August. [kick off 7.15pm]

Aon is a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Our colleagues empower results for clients by using proprietary data and analytics to deliver insights that reduce volatility and improve performance.

Image Inpho/ Dan Sheridan

eir Sport channels are available across the eir Vision, Sky and Vodafone TV platforms as well as on the eir Sport app. All 7 channels in the eir Sport pack are available for free if you are a residential eir broadband customer