Ireland defiance against France a 'confidence booster', says Edel McMahon

It says a lot about where Ireland are coming from that a 21-point defeat can be viewed as a "confidence booster".

But context, as always, is everything.

France came into the opening game of the 2024 Guinness Women's Six Nations as 40-point favourites against an Irish team who finished last season pointless.

The aggregate score from their previous two meetings was 93-8 in favour of Les Bleues.

Ireland's two best players of the 2023 campaign, Nichola Fryday and Deirble Nic a Bhaird were missing through international retirement and injury, respectively.

Co-captain Sam Monaghan was ruled out late in the day as she undergoes return-to-play protocols following a concussion picked up on club duty.

The lineout didn't function well and the scrum creaked at times but all things considered the margin of defeat, which was a 29 points better than the game 12 months ago, gives Scott Bemand's side a foothold at the base of the mountain they are climbing.

"We brought the fight to the French for sure."

Irish captain Edel McMahon was happy with a lot of things in the loss to France, but stressed there was a lot of improvement needed too moving forward. pic.twitter.com/CYC22Co0pz

"It's a big confidence booster for us," captain Edel McMahon told reporters after the 38-17 loss in Le Mans.

"This was our first real test since [the WXV3 in] Dubai to have a crack at World Cup contending squads and we showed that we can contend with them.

"To fine tune some of our set-piece and our exits and our kick strategy is something we’ll go after, but it gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we’re heading in the right direction.

"[The atmosphere] was unbelievable. I think a lot of the players were quite excited about the crowd.

"I think we took it in, I think we