Monaghan wants Ireland to build on WXV win

Ireland co-captain Sam Monaghan says the team aim to build on last weekend's big win over Kazakhstan as they prepare to take on Colombia in the WXV3.

After a disappointing Six Nations where Ireland finished bottom and had to deal with a lot of "outside noise", the team have been taken over by new head coach Scott Bemand.

They began the new era with a 109-0 victory over the hapless Kazakhs last weekend.

Monaghan, who starts in the second row for the clash in Dubai this afternoon [2pm kick-off], said: "We had them training games against Scotland but nothing compares to the real deal and for the new players to get that experience behind them, and have something to build on.

"Our aim is to be better than we were last week."

Asked what the biggest difference between the old and new set-ups was, Monaghan, who plays with Gloucester-Hartpury and will win her 17th cap, said: "The consistency in our game model, and how we are trying to execute that. [We are] very clear in what our roles are and how we pull that across the pitch.

"I think the morale has been another thing. Scott is quite open and honest.

"You can have those conversations, which is great for any player to feel like they can up to the head coach and have a casual conversation about selection or a certain thing that happened in the pitch."

While conceding that the nature of last weekend’s win didn’t stress his team’s defence, Bemand said he was pleased that the team never let up as they ran in 17 tries.

"I didn’t think the players got giddy with the score," said the former England assistant.

"Quite commonly you can see a scoreboard start to escalate and scoring rate starts to drop so there’s a mental discipline.

"That’s if you are scoring tries or not but the discipline of the