The narrative from Japan has been consistent in tone from players and coaches alike – one celebrating the opportunity that the two-match tour has provided in straddling a progression from amateur to a more full-time rugby orientation, complete in the near future with professional contracts for some of the squad.
Ireland shrugged off an indifferent start in last week’s first Test to romp to a 57-22 victory. It was underpinned by a dominance up front and a particularly lucrative lineout maul that yielded three tries alone for hooker Neve Jones. Japan will be more clued in on Saturday, because they will have to be or suffer a similar shellacking.
Assistant coach Niamh Briggs, who won 62 caps during Ireland’s most successful era that yielded two Six Nations Championships and a World Cup victory over the New Zealand Black Ferns, explained that the travelling party have derived a significant benefit from being on tour, challenging each other in training and in pushing themselves physically every day.
The heat and humidity provide a significant challenge, but everyone has bought into head coach Greg McWilliams’ philosophy. Briggs explained: “It was a huge opportunity for us to put them [the players] under stress and pressure in training sessions, hoping that [as a result] the game will be a little easier.
“The education in how we look after ourselves, what we do on and off the pitch, has repercussions for the quality of training and that has been a really good lesson from the players’ and coaches’ perspective.
“Once we become more full time, players will get used to backing up training sessions, which we wouldn’t be used to; we will [then] develop that robustness and resilience. We wouldn’t have been able to do that in the past. It has been a struggle for us this week. We put a huge amount of effort into that game last week and to be fair we are still fatigued, we are still tired, we are still trying to recover.”
Training has been tailored to accommodate that process but there’s little doubt that the physical commitment in playing and training on a tour requires acclimation. Briggs said: “These two weeks are going to be so beneficial to us as a group in terms of education going forward; how much we can push each other, how we recover, the importance of nutrition, the importance of staying off our feet so that we can train again at a high level again the next day.
“As a playing group, irrespective of the result on Saturday, that’s going to be a big win for us going forward.”
The Waterford native understands what it takes to be an international player and that empathy she offers to her young charges is an important part of the bonding process.
“They have come in with no fear. From a coaching point of view, I love the fact that their training age, even though they are 18 or 19, is bigger than some of the girls that are older in the squad. They have all been playing since they were kids. They can fix things really quickly and they can learn things quickly.
“As a coach you want to be able to give them information, but you also want to empower them and get them to play what they see in front of them. Trying to strike that balance has been a bit of a challenge. Those players need to know that I have a huge amount of confidence in them to go and play the way they want.”
Briggs will hope that freedom will once again be in evidence this Saturday in Tokyo, where individuals shine without compromising the collective coherence.
