Scott Bemand: Tough day at the office for 'shell-shocked' Ireland

Outclassed and distinctly second best in every facet of the game, Scott Bemand admitted it was "a tough day at the office" as Ireland fell to a 88-10 defeat to England.

The Red Roses, unbeaten in the championship since 2018, ran in 14 tries on an afternoon to forget for the visitors.

Ireland had harboured hopes of an improved showing against the number one ranked team, but will have very little, bar their first points against England in four meetings, to take away from their Guinness Women's Six Nations clash in London.

"A tough day at the office," said the head coach.

"But where the group was, where they are moving towards, we’ll take our learnings.

"We’re either winning or learning, they are an honest group. We’ll work hard at it. We’ve got a really big game to get excited about next week [against Scotland].

"We’ve come up against England, the market leaders at the minute in world rugby. It’s an occasion we’ve got to learn to play.

"We’ll dust ourselves down and come back better."

It only took seven minutes for England to break down the Irish defence and they appeared to score at will after that, never taking their foot off the opposition throat.

"The momentum started moving away from us," added the former England lead coach.

"At times we looked a little bit shell-shocked. That’s fine. You see teams that went on to become good teams playing these occasions, finals, semi-finals, big games.

"Today was a big game for a youthful group. Would we have predicted a margin like that? Probably not.

"Unfortunately, it’s how it went and there were some bits we could definitely control better."

After a first championship win in two years against Wales last weekend, Bemand said that their second biggest defeat to England, during which they