All warm-up games come with a health warning and Ireland’s meeting with Canada in Belfast will be no different. Whatever happens in what is now Affidea Stadium on Saturday, it will exist as little more than a footnote once the upcoming World Cup is put to bed.
That’s not to say that this doesn’t hold some interest.
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand spoke this week about the pleasing “flow” of their two tee-ups.
Last week’s opener brought a come-from-behind rust-buster against the Scots in Cork. This second and last trial run isn’t so much as a step up as a minor leap of faith.
Kevin Rouet’s side are ranked second in the world, sandwiched between tournament hosts and favourites England and a Black Ferns side that starts as reigning champions but one that has lost to and drawn with Canada twice in Christchurch this last two years.
The visitors here have already stuffed South Africa twice, once in Pretoria and again in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) on a combined score of 83-25. The USA were beaten up a stick on a score of 42-10 in Ottawa last week. Neither may be powerhouses but still.
This will be the seventh game since the start of May for Canada who have already named a 32-strong World Cup squad that includes seven silver medallists from last year’s Olympics in Paris. More than half of them will be on view in Belfast.
Captain and centre Alexandra Tressier was nominated for player of the year in 2024. Second row Sophie de Goede, recently back to fitness after over a year out, was in World Rugby’s dream team last year and in 2022. Threats are everywhere.
In all, 21 of their named squad took part at the last tournament in New Zealand when they were edged out by the hosts in the semi-final. Three of them – Tyson Beukeboom, Olivia DeMerchant and Karen Paquin – will be doing this for a fourth time.
“We’re under no illusion that this is going to be a hard match,” said Ireland No.8 Brittany Hogan. “We are going to have to earn every single inch that we play against them. They’re a very physically dominant team, but we just have to match it.”
What’s remarkable is how Canada are doing this on a shoestring budget. A ‘Mission: Win Rugby World Cup (MWRWC)’ campaign was launched to try and raise CA$1m for the team for this latest bid and is now almost 90% of the way towards its target.
Ireland’s women are, belatedly, better resourced than ever and the senior team’s initial progress kicked up the gears late last year when Scott Bemand’s side shocked the Black Ferns in WXV1s in Canada before pushing the hosts all the way a week later.
A 21-8 defeat for the Six Nations side against this latest opponent was the end result there, but a couple of first-half yellow cards had proven crucial to the tie with the Canadians already leading 21-5 by the half-time break. That one still hurts some.
“Yeah, definitely, we were very frustrated after that game, and that goes to show the growth of the group as well,” said Hogan. “Like, being really frustrated about losing, not pretty narrowly, but it was quite a tight score as well.
“They only scored whenever we were down to 13 players, and it was a very frustrating end to the game. We felt like we left a lot of scores and a lot of things out there. So we’re hoping to show what we can do against them this weekend.”
The likelihood is that Ireland at their best exist somewhere in the middle between the seventh-ranked Scots team defeated last week and the Canadian side they face this time around. Not least with the likes of Erin King, Dorothy Wall and Aoife Wafer all injured.
Only Wafer of that trio stands a chance of playing in the World Cup, while the experienced Edel McMahon and Christy Haney will have no playing time under their belts going to the tournament in England due to respective hamstring and knee problems.
It is Haney’s problem that opened the door for former England loosehead Ellena Perry to make the bench for Ireland here with Bemand making ten changes in all to the side that fronted up in Virgin Media Park seven days before.
Maybe two-thirds of this XV would make up Ireland’s first-choice side with another experienced cohort poised off the bench. For the rest, this is the last chance to strengthen individual cases with the squad to be named on Monday.
S Flood; B Parsons, A Dalton, E Breen, A McGann; D O’Brien, A Reilly; N O’Dowd, N Jones, L Djougang; R Campbell, F Tuite; G Moore, I Kiripati, B Hogan.
J Schell; A Corrigan, F Symonds, A Tessier, P Farries; C Gallagher, J Pelletier; M Hunt, G Boag, D Menin; S de Goede, T Beukeboom; K Paquin, C Crossley, F Forteza.
A Groizeleau (FFR).
