Bemand relishing step up in class for Ireland against Spain

Ireland head coach Scott Bemand has welcomed the step up in class his side will face against Spain in the "final" of the WXV3.

The team have already racked up 173 points and 27 tries in complete mismatches against Kazakhstan and Colombia in Dubai over the last two weeks.

Their next task is a re-match with Spain, who famously upset the odds in 2021 when downing Ireland 8-7 in Italy, a result that shook Irish rugby and contributed to their failure to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.

Spain, currently two places behind Ireland in the world rankings in 12th, have beaten Kenya and Fiji so far. Ireland will top the table if they avoid defeat on Saturday afternoon (2pm Irish time).

During a press conference this morning, where it was clarified that winning the WXV3 division doesn't automatically deliver promotion to the second tier, which will depend on Six Nations placings, Bemand said he was confident that the team was prepared for the next step.

"A much-needed challenge," the English man, who took over the team after their Six Nations wooden spoon campaign, said.

"You can only beat what’s in front of you and we’ve been talking about this since the beginning, it’s about our own identity so [those two games] actually gave us a bit of a chance to build... [to] get those on-pitch bonds.

"We’ve trained pretty hard so regardless of who we are playing against we’ve managed to keep our foot down in training and hold ourselves to standards that we believe we’ll need when these bigger challenges do come.

"We’re probably at the right time now where we relish a bit more challenge and coming with that extra pressure that a final can bring, we’re in a good place for it."

Bemand has made two changes to his starting XV with Dorothy Wall and Molly