We were on the road from 4am to get our early flight into Cardiff. I don’t know what sort of smuggling ring has evolved in camp but 6 of our girls in front of me beeped going through security. Questions need to be asked there hmmm…

We arrived in Wales very early and coached it to Bridgend RFC just before 9am.The facilities were lovely with plasmas, pool table, wifi etc. which was very well as we had a good bit of time to burn before getting brunch.

Hopes were high and the girls were focused during the warm up, the humidity was indescribable during parts of the afternoon but the girls knew they had a job ahead…

We got off to a flying start with a try in the opening 10 mins but they were soon to come back at us. Wales are a physical hard hitting team and they demonstrated that early on. It was neck and neck going into the 2nd half and we knew we would have to lift our game to come away with a win…

There was a considerable change in aggression from our girls in the 2nd half and well-worked open play, which resulted in our 2nd, try… A converted penalty saw us leading with 13 pts… But Wales persistently kept the pressure on and ran in their 2nd try which was successfully converted, there was now just one point between us as time was running out…

We were unlucky not to run in at least one other try after some well ran lines from the backs but it was Wales who would have the last score of the game, a penalty was awarded in a kickable position with less than 5mins to go, and that’s exactly what they did. Wales were now up by 2pts and, unfortunately for us, that’s how it ended…

As a whole the team were disappointed at the result, but took the 2nd half performance as a positive…

Myself and the girls that didn’t got any pitch time were disappointed which is only natural as you train to play, but there will be other games and other points to prove!

The next time Ireland will be hitting the field will be the 20th Aug against England in the opening game of World Cup 2010. The ground work has been done, structures put in place and tactics talked over but now the talking comes to an end. It will be 80 mins of every ounce of ability this squad of girls have, which will determine who will be coming away with the points at the final whistle…

Anything is possible…

Until next time…