Dorothy Wall: Ireland 'taking lumps out of each other' in training

Dorothy Wall believes there's no comparison between this Ireland team and the one which fell to a heavy defeat to Wales in last year's Guinness Women's Six Nations.

Ireland welcome the Welsh to Cork on Saturday for their third game of this year's championship, with Scott Bemand's side still looing for their first win of 2024.

Wall is one of just six survivors in the starting line-up from the XV that began last year's 31-5 defeat in Cardiff, which was the first of what has now become a seven-game losing run in the Six Nations.

"I would say [we are] a different team," the Munster lock responded, when asked how Ireland have improved in the 13 months since that game.

That game, and in particular the first half where they fell 26-0 down, set the tone for what would be a winless campaign, with Ireland overpowered by an impressive Welsh pack.

Wall (below) believes Ireland have taken significant strides since.

"I think we're in a very different place to what we were last year and that first half [against Wales] definitely took the wind out of us a bit last year.

"We have to have faith in our set-up, our system, the coaches, the work we're doing, everywhere. I’d like to think it wouldn’t be like that this year.

"I think we probably weren't prepared for the style of game that they played on that day. It showed in the physicality at set-piece, decision making getting out of our 22. There was a lot of things that we probably needed to fix after that game."

Ireland could, and probably should have picked up their first win against Italy last time out, losing 27-21 at the RDS despite dominating the visitors. A litany of handling errors in prime scoring position saw them leave multiple tries on the table.

Bemand's side have had to stew on that