Women’s Rugby World Cup: Ireland will want to prove win over New Zealand ‘wasn’t a one off’ – Nichola Fryday

I think the line-out is one area Ireland will look to improve on.

The performances in the first two rounds against Japan and Spain, they weren’t perfect, especially last week.

But you don’t want them to be perfect. You want to have things to work on and improve as the tournament goes on.

The ‘Green Wave’ of Ireland supporters has been evident throughout the tournament and those fans are going to continue alongside them.

It’s set to be a 31,000 sell-out at the Brighton and Hove Albion Stadium, with the majority supporting Ireland, and that support really does mean a lot to those girls.

In big tournaments and stadiums you walk onto the pitch and there are so many people cheering you on and you stand for the anthems, then you forget about it when the game gets going, it’s more background noise that you don’t even think about.

I don’t think Ireland will let the size of the crowd affect them, they’ll tap into that backing but will then put it to the back of their mind.

These are the kind of games you look back on and remember for the rest of your life when you hang your boots up, a real career highlight and a huge opportunity.

I played the Black Ferns once and it sure was a bit of an eye opener as to what international rugby really was about.

As regards the tournament itself, I’m hoping that we will see more closely contested competitive games coming into these final pool matches this weekend and then into the quarter-finals, not so many one-sided games.

Australia against the USA last week [a 31-31 draw], that was an entertaining game that went back and forth, a match like that draws people in and they are the most enjoyable to watch.

Nichola Fryday was speaking to BBC Sport NI’s Richard Petrie