Linda Djougang and Aoife Wafer set to be fit for trip to England

Neil Treacy Neil Treacy | 04-17 08:15

Ireland head coach Scott Bemand looks set to have a full squad to choose from for Saturday's Guinness Women's Six Nations meeting with England at Twickenham.

Both loosehead Linda Djougang and flanker Aoife Wafer appeared to be injury doubts after departing Saturday's 36-5 win against Wales in Cork, with Djougang looking in real distress as she left with an arm injury.

However, the Ireland coach says the pair are back training, and on track to be available for the meeting with the defending champions.

"Linda and Aoife took a bit of a bang, which left us with 14 at the end [of the Wales game]," he said.

"Rugby is a collision sport, people have been recovering well this week and both are expected to be available."

Bemand knows Saturday's opponents intimately, having spent nine years as an assistant with the Red Roses, winning the championship six times in that span.

And he says he's excited to link up with some familiar faces this weekend.

"I am looking forward to it. The nature of professional sport, your coaching environments and playing environments, you sometimes move clubs.

"Going back, I'm still pretty close with some of the coaching staff, it's been good to see them going well, but it's a great opportunity to go to Twickenham off the back of a win and see what we can do there," he (below) added.

Saturday's win against Wales was Ireland's first of the championship so far, as they produced a dominant display to end their run of 10 straight defeats in the championship.

It looks unrealistic to expect back-to-back wins at Twickenham this weekend, with England looking in a league of their own this season, scoring 140 points and conceding just 10 across their opening three wins.

More than 44,000 tickets have been sold for Saturday's meeting at the home of English rugby, which is roughly six times Ireland's largest ever home attendance for a Test match, but Bemand says he want to see how his players embrace the occasion.

"We have some ideas that we look at in terms of some areas of the game. In terms of the occasion, I think you're going into Twickenham, we talked about a little bit of preparation for playing in a big arena with a big crowd.

"Generally I think the girls get up for these kinds of occasions, it's exciting.

"We want to be at the forefront of this, it would be lovely in the not-too-distant future to do something similar at the Aviva. We're lucky enough to partake in a game like this where they’ll have a crowd and where the noise is a little bit different for the girls’ internationals. Like a constant noise, rather than sort of the highs and lows, it’s brilliant.

England have averaged just over 45 points per game so far this season

"It’s really class to see and I think hopefully if our girls can get used to playing in it, and we can one day try and replicate that over here, I think it would be really class for the women’s game in Ireland.

"Games can give you different scenarios. I said it last week to the group, the group's becoming more adaptable. It's one of the strengths I'd seen with the group.

"We'll get some footage, we'll have a little look, we'll see where we can put the ball and what questions we can ask of them.

"We've know quite a lot of them, some of the girls play in the UK, and some of us have coached them for a while, so we know what we're against and we can try find the ball in some areas that can cause some problems," he added.

Follow a live blog on England v Ireland in the Guinness Women's Six Nations on Saturday from 2.15pm.

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