Ireland head coach Scott Bemand says his team will embrace rising expectations surrounding the Women’s World Cup in August.
Having failed to qualify for the last renewal, Ireland’s third-place finish in last year’s Six Nations secured a place in the tournament in England.
Two wins out of five, along with results from other games, were enough for the team last spring but subsequent victories over Australia, world champions New Zealand and USA in the WXV1 competition have raised expectations.
Ireland, ranked sixth in the world, are in Pool 3 and will take on the Black Ferns, Japan and Spain in Northampton and Brighton.
"If our time is to win now, brilliant. If it isn't, we're going to keep improving at a rate of knots.
"And certainly in the next couple of years, we've got the World Cup in 2029 over in Australia, we want to be right in the mix of winning competitions, whether that's a Six Nations or a World Cup.
"The brilliant thing of what's happened recently is this probably happening quicker than we thought.
"We think we can get to a World Cup now and make people sit up.
"So we want to go deep into the competition.
"We've always said we want to become a World Cup contender, which basically means top-four in the world.
"So if you get to a semi-final, we believe you're right in the mix to win it.
"It won't be easy, but it's part of the fun of elite sport."
Ireland are also set to welcome aboard former centre Lynne Cantwell (above), who last October was appointed by the IRFU as head of women's strategy for the game in the country.
The announcement was seen as a coup with Cantwell, Ireland's most capped player, returning from South Africa where she was women’s high-performance manager since 2021.
"She'd obviously done her bit over in South Africa and made a real positive impact in their game from the top of the tree to the roots," added the 46-old, who took over as head coach in 2023 after spending eight years in the England set-up.
"That's something that we're really conscious that we want to do in Ireland.
"We want to join up the elite game with the community game.
"We want a high-level experience for young girls playing the game, we want quality coaching.
"We want the community buying in and feeling connected with what we're trying to achieve at the top end of the game.
"So Lynne's role, I believe, it's quite overarching over the whole women's game.
"I’ve no doubt she's going to come in and do a great job."
