Debutant Méabh Deely heaped praise upon her more experienced colleagues for helping the Ireland women’s side to weather a significant storm in their summer tour opener against Japan at Ecopa Stadium in Fukuroi on Saturday.
In their first game since squeezing past Scotland at the end of the Six Nations Championship, the visitors found themselves 15 points adrift with just 11 minutes gone. This is the kind of start that could have deflated Irish teams in the past, but the response of Greg McWilliams’ charges was emphatic.
While the majestic Neve Jones finished with a hat-trick of tries, Deely and Aoife Dalton crossed the whitewash on their first international appearances to perfectly supplement a 12-point haul from fellow novice Dannah O’Brien. Yet Galway native Deely believes this was made possible thanks to the hard work of those around them.
“Us new girls really looked up to the likes of Dorothy [Wall] and Nichola Fryday to get a push-on. They said themselves we had been in this position before. They really showed a lot of resilience and we just followed in their footsteps. That’s what let us keep going and we did really well, the whole team,” Deely said after the game.
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“They gave us so much confidence. I didn’t feel like there was much pressure on us and especially with Aoife Dalton and Natasja Behan, us being 13-14-15. I’ve known them for quite a while and have played a lot of sevens and club rugby with them both. They weren’t new to me.”
The aforementioned Behan completed the quartet of starting debutants - Leah Tarpey and Taryn Schultzer picked up their first caps off the bench - and is a club-mate of Deely’s at Blackrock. She has been forced to bide her time after featuring in the wider squad for the Six Nations, but was thrilled to finally get a chance to impress.
“Not getting the cap during the Six Nations made me realise how much more I wanted it. It was more of a positive thing for me. Obviously in the beginning I was a bit down in the dumps, but you just have to pick yourself back up,” Behan remarked.
“I just knew what I wanted then. It was a hard few months in training, giving up a lot in terms of friends and going away and stuff like that. It all paid off in the end. I’m delighted now and happy I stuck with it.”
Japan had played a number of international Tests in the weeks that preceded this two-game series (the sides will renew acquaintances in Tokyo on Saturday) and certainly looked the more battle-hardened outfit in the early moments. After Misaki Suzuki and Komachi Imakugi crossed over for tries inside the opening five minutes, an Ayasa Otsuka penalty edged them further in front.
The addition of former Fiji men’s head coach John McKee to McWilliams’s staff for this international window has seen Ireland working overtime on their set-piece and this was in evidence for Jones’ opening score off a lineout maul move just shy of the first-quarter mark.
Superb link-up play from Enya Breen and Deely subsequently released Aoife Doyle for her maiden Irish try on 23 minutes and her namesake Dalton made it a perfect ending to the half by crossing over via an O’Brien pass in time added on.
Having recovered from that early Japanese onslaught to lead 19-15 at the break, Ireland continued to push forward on the resumption. Ulster hooker Jones ensured it was a day to remember on a personal level with further tries in the 42nd and 53rd minute, before Deely bagged the try that her display deserved approaching the hour.
The hosts eventually fired back through Makoto Lavemai’s powerful finish underneath the posts on 63 minutes and given the damage Lesley McKenzie’s side had inflicted at the beginning of the contest, Ireland couldn’t afford to take the foot off the gas.
Any prospect of a dramatic Japanese fightback quickly evaporated, however, as Chloe Pearse touched down in the left-corner after the ever-influential Sam Monaghan had charged down an attempted clearance. There was enough time left for Molly Scuffil-McCabe and Emma Hooban to claim tries number eight and nine for the victorious Irish, while Tullow’s O’Brien cemented her confident showing by knocking over a drop-kick conversion at the death.
