Ireland Women’s head coach Scott Bemand said he was delighted that his team were able to show the Irish public what they were capable of.
Ireland scored six tries in a thoroughly deserved 36-10 victory over Australia at the Kingspan Stadium.
“It’s great to bring another winning performance back to Ireland,” said Bemand after the 150th anniversary Test.
“We said we wanted to take people along with us. To come up here, play fifth in the world, they are a good team, Australia are a tier one nation.
“Being able to bring them to Ireland and put a performance there that gives the crowd something to get behind and gives the Irish public something they can see that we are moving forward and something to cheer.
“It felt like an exciting game and I’m delighted for the girls that some of the things we are starting to work on and want to implement we are starting to see a bit of fruit.”
The hosts scored three tries in each half and were largely in control against a side ranked four places higher.
Asked if it was the best performance in his reign, Bemand (below) was not getting over excited.
He said: “The difference being in competition, the Six Nations we probably had the weight of trying to achieve something. With this we know we are going into WXV1 next week.
“What happened today was important in taking us forward but without the weight of the result that the Six Nations brings.
“In terms of what the game looked like and how it flowed and where we got pressure, possibly. It’s brilliant being able to bring a bench on with that much firepower.
“They move a game up a level and it’s brilliant to see us score tries through pushing, getting a couple of tries today, that’s a great way to finish.
“We are showing we can score in a couple of different ways. Now we’ve got to keep that momentum going against more tier one nations.
Australia head coach Jo Yapp admitted the better team won.
“Credit to Ireland, they played well,” she told RTÉ Sport.
“But from our perspective our discipline let us down around that breakdown. We gave away a lot of penalties, which gave them field position, which we struggled to get out of.
“You can see from the way Ireland have progressed over the last 18 months, they’ve been working together under Scott.
“We knew they were capable of a strong performance. They are in WXV1 for a reason.”