The Ireland squad had their Captain's Run training session in Cork today, with just over 5,900 tickets currently sold for tomorrow’s round-three game as Ireland look to record their first win in the championship since April 2022.

Exeter Chiefs hooker Moloney has been named on the bench in what’s set to be her first international cap since November 2021. Monaghan – who plays against Moloney in the Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) with her club Gloucester Hartpury – believes the Galway player will have a big influence.

“Oh, massive impact. She’s such a strong ball-carrier. Her work-rate around the pitch is immense. She’s class, just to have that experience as well. She’s a dog on the pitch,” Monaghan said today after their Captains Run.

“I love playing with her, don’t love playing against her so much! So really excited to be taking the field with her tomorrow.”

Last week, the Ireland squad had a training session with the Barnhall Under-20 men’s team to prepare them for the final three rounds.

Ireland haven’t beaten Wales since 2021 and last year the Welsh dominated this fixture in a 31-5 win in Cardiff.

Monaghan believes Ireland will be better equipped to handle the Wales power game, while she also has that familiarity with some of the Welsh players – including prop Sisilia Tuipulotu - who play with Gloucester.

“A few of us knew what was coming last year. I play with 11 or 12 of them in Gloucester and they have a good few playing in Bristol. They’re quite cohesive because a lot of them play in big groups with their clubs together.

"But I think the preparation we’ve had this year is just steps above. So how we’re going to move them around and play around them and then tire them out and go through them. So look, it’s what we’re going to do, stick to our game plan. We did stick to the game plan against Italy, it was just about finding those execution bits that can finish this game off in our favour.

“Hopefully, we continue to create opportunities like we did against Italy and actually just execute that, get some scores on the board,” Monaghan continued. “We’re starting to see that in our campaign, we’re getting tries, it’s something we’ve really been going after; our savage set-piece, we want the crowd screaming for us and we want to entertain them.”

Ireland had 28 handling errors in their 27-21 defeat to Italy at the RDS two weeks ago. Co-captain Edel McMahon – who was dropped for that game but returns to the back row for tomorrow – believes the increased time in camp together will make for a smoother performance.

“I just think it’s down to the cohesiveness,” McMahon says. “Confidence comes from clarity and I think we’ve got quite a lot of clarity over what we’re going after on both sides of the ball with Dec [Danaher, defence coach] in defence; with John [McKee, senior coach] we’ve been doing a lot of work in our line outs this week and how we’re going to attack and defend those, especially with what Wales bring in their set piece.

“And then from the attack point of view, really going after an ambitious attack, getting to the edges and being ambitious, being brave in how we play. So from a clarity piece, we’re really cohesive on that and that’s why we’re starting to really build now.”

It’s the first time Monaghan and McMahon will start a Six Nations game together as co-captains. They will speak to Sara Cox – the referee for tomorrow’s game - to see if both of them can talk to her during the match. If she allows only one captain, then McMahon will take on that responsibility.

“If we’re both allowed to speak to her, that’s the avenue we’ll go and if it’s through one pathway, let’s say, I’ll just get messages from Sam, Eve [McMahon] and the rest of the leaders and make sure I communicate that to the ref,” McMahon says.

“It’s great to have two brains on the pitch to see more vision all round,” Monaghan adds. “But we’ve Eve as well, who’s a fantastic leader and has taken our spots as we came off the last couple of games, so yeah, it's just about having another set of eyes on the pitch.”