McWilliams urges Irish fans to stick with team

Greg McWilliams says Ireland are improving and has urged fans to keep supporting the team in the wake of a record loss to France.

A crowd of 5,214 at Musgrave Park saw Ireland concede nine tries in a 53-3 TikTok Women's Six Nations defeat against a French outfit that played 60 minutes with 14 players.

The visitors had two tries on the board before prop Annaelle Deshayes was sent off for a high tackle and added seven more before the end of the match.

"I thought it was better in some areas," said the head coach, whose side lost 31-5 to Wales last week, to RTÉ Sport.

"Our set piece was improved but it's tough when you play a little bit slower and they are winning the corridor of power because the ball slows down and it's hard to generate momentum.

"If you look at certain individuals who played there today, they stood up and I think we want to see fight in this group at the moment.

"I understand it's not what the Irish public want, they want us to be winning games but I remember back, with Niamh Briggs [coach and former [player] over there, in 2010, 2011, losing matches by bigger scorelines but it wasn't shown on TV and we got a couple of column inches.

"We were able to go through that journey without the public and without being on TV and now the public are seeing this journey and we hope that they stay supportive of, most importantly, the players."

While France, ranked third in the world, were clinical in taking their chances, McWilliams, who now has two weeks to prepare his side for a trip to Italy, knows the squad has much to work on.

"There's lots, we improved a lot from last week," he added before highlighting some of the more positive aspects in the performance.

"We'll look back on the footage and be analytical and pinpoint