Ireland open their Women's Six Nations against France at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast this Saturday (1pm).The Girls in Green won two tournament games last season, beating Wales 36-5 in Cork and Scotland 15-12 in Belfast, a considerable improvement on the 2025 meltdown when they lost all five games and failing to gain a bonus-point of any description, finished plum last.Assistant Coach Hugh Hogan points out that last season's Six Nations was the beginning of something particularly good, the squad going to Vancouver for WX1 and stunning New Zealand 29-27, beating USA and losing to Canada. READ MORE: Both Sam Prendergast and Jack Crowley have been done a disservice by muddled Six Nations selections - One F in Foley READ MORE: If Six Nations XV 2025 was picked on pure statistical returns, Ireland would have only two players involved "We’ve evolved our coaching group since a year ago," says Defence Coach Hogan who started last August, as did Forwards Coach Alex Codling and kicking Coach Gareth Steenson."There’s evolution and players going in all the time. I think to challenge for a Six Nations tournament, you have to have a strong set-piece, your scrum and line-out so we’ve doubled-down and we’ve gone after that. "You’ve also got to have a strong defensive game, allied to your kicking strategy. I think that was a growth for us in Vancouver and it’s another aspect to the game that we’ve got to continue to drive."We also want to be ambitious in how we play the game. We’ve been developing different layers to our attack decision-making - when it might be on to move the ball, or keep the ball alive that we’ll try and go after those opportunities as well."Hogan is encouraging rugby fans to tune in as Ireland are going to be comptitive."Our expectation is that we’ll challenge France and, like a high quality test match, it comes down to moments. "There’s big moments in games and when you can win some of those moments you put them in the bank, if you lose some of them they may cost you or they may hurt you points. "I think what we expect on the weekend is a strong challenge from France but we’ll go out to put out a strong Irish performance as well. "I’d love to tell you, yeah we’re definitely going to win but the reality is it's going to come down to moments. And if we can put more in the win column then we’ll be in a great shout of winning the game."Second-row Sam Monaghan is in training camp but won't be fit for the opening games while Beibhinn Parsons is back training and may be in the mix for this week.Continued Hogan: "We've had four weeks of three-day training camps leading into this, our first Test week. Overall, we have a pretty healthy squad. "Probably two or three players who had been coming back from injury are in the reckoning to be fit for selection which is wonderful." The Irish Mirror has a rugby WhatsApp group where you can get breaking new and top stories on Ireland's Six Nations campaign straight to your phone. Click here to join. You can leave our group at any time if you don't like it.