{"id":13943,"date":"2026-04-26T09:44:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13943"},"modified":"2026-04-26T09:44:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T08:44:36","slug":"womens-six-nations-fine-margins-what-cost-ireland-in-france-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=13943","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Six Nations: ‘Fine margins’ – What cost Ireland in France defeat?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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After the big talk in the build-up, Ireland blew France away in the opening 40 minutes but, largely, were left unrewarded for their efforts.<\/p>\n

Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald crossed for Ireland but had two efforts chalked off, while Brittany Hogan and Fiona Tuite were also denied first-half scores.<\/p>\n

France, who are tipped to meet England in a Grand Slam decider on the final day of the Six Nations, showed a clinical edge and moved clear after the restart through Carla Arbez, Anais Grando and Lea Champon, while Ireland could not back up their first-half performance and fell short.<\/p>\n

Under head coach Scott Bemand, Ireland have moved up to fifth in the world and stunned New Zealand and Australia in 2024, but the elusive Six Nations scalp goes on.<\/p>\n

England had too much on the opening day, when a slow start was punished, and defeat by France shows there is still work to be done.<\/p>\n

“In these kinds of Test matches the margins become finer, so we’re after finer margins than we were,” Bemand said.<\/p>\n

“Nail your kick to touch and nail your exit – they are the type of things that don’t let France in.<\/p>\n

“We will keep going after the finer margins and keep trying to get better. I’ve got a group who is up for that.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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After the big talk in the build-up, Ireland blew France away in the opening 40 minutes but, largely, were left unrewarded for their efforts. Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald crossed for Ireland but had two efforts chalked off, while Brittany Hogan and Fiona Tuite were also denied first-half scores. France, who are tipped to meet England in a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}