Ireland edge Japan 31-24 in WXV Global Series but Bemand demands improvement

Ireland claimed a nervy 31-24 win over Japan in the WXV Global Series at Dexcom Stadium in Galway, bouncing back from a 40-36 defeat by the USA Women’s Eagles the previous week to open their account in the 2026 edition of the tournament.

Brittany Hogan, named player of the match, and Béibhinn Parsons — now Ireland’s all-time leading women’s try scorer — each crossed twice, with Aoife Dalton adding a fifth try to give Scott Bemand’s side enough of a cushion to hold on. Japan’s Sakura Fifteen were far from passive opponents, however, with Moe Nagaoka dotting down twice, Nijiho Nagata scoring from a maul, and 18-year-old Nami Asari getting over in the closing stages to keep the scoreboard ticking.

Despite the result, Hogan was candid about where Ireland fell short. “We need to come in on ourselves and have more pride in our try line,” she said. “We can’t be too soft in our maul defence, and we need to be better on that next week. You could see it was a tale of two halves — we had the wind with us in the first half, and we were against it in the second, so we just had to try and play with it.”

Ireland captain Erin King, who spent 10 minutes in the sin bin just before half-time for going off her feet, was proud of the collective response after last week’s loss. “Last week asked questions of us and I think we answered them today,” she said. “We definitely had some frustrations and it was tough, but fair play to Japan — they really brought it to us and it was no easy feat.”

King was characteristically self-deprecating about her yellow card. “I made it a little bit tougher taking my 10 minutes in the sin bin, so I’ll apologise to the girls for that one,” she added, also congratulating debutant Beth Buttimer on earning her first cap.

Head coach Bemand acknowledged the margin for improvement while taking some encouragement from the performance. “The first half, the scoreboard should have looked more favourable for us. There is lots to work on as always,” he said. “I thought we were better today than last week, so we just have to continue to get better as quickly as we can.”

Ireland, ranked fifth in the world, will be looking to build on this win when they return to action in the following round of the WXV Global Series.