Ireland’s key player:<\/strong> The woman in the number seven jersey – Aoife Wafter. The reigning Six Nations Player of the Tournament has not featured so far at Rugby World Cup 2025 as she has been recovering from knee surgery. Such is her impact within the squad that as soon as her rehab had been completed, she slots straight in for Ireland’s biggest game of the tournament.<\/p>\nWhat France said<\/p>\n
France co-head coach Ga\u00eblle Mignot:<\/p>\n
“(The scrum is) going to be a key battle. Every opponent so far has brought a different type of scrum, and Ireland will be no different. They\u2019re a very strategic side and gave us problems in that area during the Six Nations. With the weather as well, we know the set-piece will be a big deal. But I trust my players \u2013 they\u2019ve shown they can step up and showcase the strength of our pack. We know it\u2019s a crucial area and we\u2019ve prepared well for it this week. Ireland are not the same type of team as South Africa, so we\u2019ll have to stay sharp right through the game.”<\/p>\n
France co-captain Marine M\u00e9nager:<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve been building towards this World Cup for three years, ironing things out along the way. We\u2019ve stumbled at times, but those moments made us grow. The idea was to learn from every step. Now, with the weather, with key players able to come in at crucial moments, we\u2019ve worked through so many scenarios \u2013 that makes us more calm. This squad knows each other inside out, we built momentum in the pool stage, so yes, we\u2019ve got confidence. But we\u2019re never too relaxed \u2013 that doesn\u2019t suit us. We\u2019re keeping our feet on the ground. We know we\u2019ll need a massive performance this weekend if we want to go further.”<\/p>\n
What Ireland said<\/p>\n
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand:<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve all wanted to see (Aoife Wafer) back on the pitch, she\u2019s been desperate to get out there and give herself to the cause. She\u2019s worked incredibly hard behind the scenes and there\u2019s been huge support for her in getting back to this point. We\u2019re fully confident she\u2019s fit and ready. She\u2019s exactly where she wants to be, and we believe this gives her the best opportunity to get her best game out there at a quarter-final.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s going to be a competitive game right until the end. Things we do early in the game are going to make a difference later in the game, and knockout rugby carries a slightly different feel to it anyway. This is your ultimate winner takes all, we\u2019ve got some ideas around how we can implement the strategy.”<\/p>\n
Ireland flanker Fiona Tuite:<\/p>\n
“The girls went through war last weekend (against New Zealand), and we took so many positives from that once we pushed the emotions aside from the loss. We played against one of the best teams in the world, we\u2019re now going to play against one of the other best teams in the world, so it\u2019s teed us up nicely from a physicality, speed and tactical point of view. Mentally we need to stay switched on, we stay in the fight, and this is all out war.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, France were touted as one of the teams to look out for at Rugby World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,661],"class_list":{"0":"post-419334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-text"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115193245193073952","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}