Ireland looking inwards ahead of daunting England trip

Ireland head coach Greg McWilliams says he and his players will be focusing entirely on themselves ahead of their daunting TikTok Women's Six Nations visit to England on Sunday.

Defending champions England have scored almost 200 points and conceded just 10 in their opening three wins, while Ireland head to Welford Road this Sunday with a squad decimated by withdrawals due to the Sevens world series, as well as injury to Sam Monaghan.

Even at full strength, Ireland would be considerable underdogs for the tie, against an English side who McWilliams says are without question the best team in the world.

"It's not even an elephant in the room, England are the best team in the world right now, by some distance," the head coach said this afternoon.

"They'd be ahead of France in my opinion by some distance and ahead of any of the southern hemisphere sides.

"From an Irish point of view, focusing on ourselves, the players feel like they can see the clear plan around what we're trying to do, particularly around the scrum and lineout. You just have to keep repping it, keep giving them as many opportunities as you can to work on their profiling, their setup [at the scrum], so we worked on that at the weekend.

"You have to stay patient defensively, we're playing against a really good attacking team who have so many threats. If you stay patient in defence and stick to plan, you hope you can stay in the game and have a punters chance. If I'm saying anything else, then I may as well not be having a press conference. You have to be upfront and honest.

"It's a massive challenge but I know for a fact there are some girls who will be in the 23 who come out with that kickstart they need to become a really good international player.

"There will be