Head coach Scott Bemand says his young Ireland squad need to “embrace” facing France in their Six Nations opener.
After a winless 2023 Six Nations, Ireland start their 2024 campaign in Le Mans on Saturday.
Bemand led Ireland to the inaugural WXV3 title in October after being appointed as head coach in July and is now targeting World Cup qualification.
“You need to get used to going away and performing in these kind of environments,” Bemand said.
After missing out on qualification for the 2021 World Cup, held a year later due to the Covid pandemic, Bemand is targeting the finals in England in 2025.
France and England – the two favourites for the Six Nations – have already qualified for the World Cup, meaning the next highest finisher will join the two heavy hitters in the finals.
While Bemand admits France is a difficult place to go, he says it will be “class” and his side will need to learn if they want to be on that stage on a more frequent basis.
“There will be 20,000 people, everyone will probably have two flags and some sort of musical instrument,” he added.
“It’s part of where we’re trying to take our group in a few years’ time, we want to keep growing and we want to become a World Cup contender. We want to get to that level.
“You get excited by it, these are the kind of days that you played rugby for.”
‘We’ve a good idea of where we are going’
After a wooden spoon finish in the 2023 Six Nations under Greg McWilliams, former England attack coach Bemand says there has been “quite a lot of water under the bridge” since last year’s competition.
“It’s important to recognise where we’ve come from. We’re certainly not shying away from it but there’s been an enormous amount that’s been done in terms of a cultural reset.
“Connections peer to peer, coaches to players, players to the public – there’s quite a bit of positivity around it now.
“We know where we were, we know where we come from, and we got a pretty good idea of where we’re going.
“We know this is a big tournament this year, bigger than ever because of the qualification for the World Cup.
“We’re going to do what it takes to put out winning performances. Hopefully that that leads to us to qualifying.”
After Ireland won the WXV3 tournament in October to bounce back from their disappointing Six Nations campaign, Bemand said England and France are “the people we’re chasing at the minute”, adding more regular international fixtures, along with investment, will help the gap to close.
“I think there’s good competition down below it [England and France] and you can look at how the unions are investing in their players.
“The IRFU have been great. I’ve been here six months, everything I’ve seen has been positive in terms of the rhetoric and in terms of the support and the resource.
“Now what we’re going to try to do is learn faster than anybody else. So there’s a gap that we need to close.
“The first thing is getting to that top table. We’re going to try to get ourselves to that point.”
