Latest news with #StaceyFlood
BBC News
11-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Ireland must 'win the little moments' against England
Full-back Stacey Flood says Ireland must "win the little moments" when they come up against world number one side and defending champions England in their Women's Six Nations match in Cork on a sevens specialist who was part of the Ireland team at the Paris Olympics, is back in the 15s fold and eager to face England for the first time in the latter earned a shock win over then world number one ranked New Zealand during their WXV1 campaign in the autumn and Flood hopes they can cause another upset."It's going to be tough but we've shown what we can do against bigger sides and we really test ourselves and believe in ourselves," she said."We just have to have confidence in the abilities we have and win the little moments and then see what the outcome is. "You shouldn't be afraid who is standing next to you because on the starting whistle it's just 15 women against 15 women."Ireland finished third in last year's Six Nations and gave France a scare in this year's tournament, before seeing off Italy in their second match of the competition."I wasn't involved last year but I know the team has come on leaps and bounds in what we're doing now and we've shown that and we've built so much throughout the last 12 months."It's a completely different side and we have way more belief and confidence in our abilities and our structure and we are one unit. I think that will stand to us a lot this weekend in Cork."Flood, who can also play at centre or fly-half, says she is happy to "take a green jersey in any position" and welcomes the opportunity to test herself against the Red Roses' back three."Coming up against one of the best back threes in the world is going to be great. There's no better way to test yourself than playing against the best and we are well capable of it."Our kicking game is obviously a big part of our game and we've been working on that non stop for the past few months so I think it will stand to us. "They will have a good kicking game so there should be good battles but hopefully we'll come out on top in most of them."
BBC News
27-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Ireland 'in good health' for Italy encounter
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand says his side are "in good health" ahead of their Six Nations meeting with Italy in Parma on side came close to causing an upset in their opening game of the 2025 tournament in Belfast last weekend but in the end ran out 27-15 losers to France."We feel like we played a Test match but came through in reasonable health so a full squad to pick from pretty much," said the Ireland coach on Thursday."Stacey Flood came back from injury and was available for the first game, but we won't be moving and shaking too much."We've a good panel, the wider squad is competing hard and people have the opportunities to break in."The beauty of where we have got this group to over the last 18 months is that we can now tolerate work, can now tolerate big games against some sizeable athletic opposition. And the cost to us physically is, touch wood, fairly low cost at this point."Wing Beibhinn Parsons and full-back Meabh Deely remain out through injury but both players could return to action later in the explained that his squad have reflected on the mistakes they made against the French and are preparing to give of their best against the Italians."We have looked at some of the performance aspects of it and we got quite a lot wrong in the game, as did France. The first game of the Six Nations and it's our first game testing ourselves against this kind of opposition. We are coming in with higher standards for ourselves."So in that sense we do feel it was a missed opportunity. We got momentum coming from behind. We let them off the hook."As a group, we haven't shied away from that. I love the honesty of the girls, they're prepared to meet the challenge."
