Adam Griggs admits it will be difficult to lift his Ireland side for the Women's Six Nations clash with France in just over a week's time.
The postponement of the clash with Italy in Dublin this coming Sunday means it will be three weeks between the loss to England in Doncaster to the fixture with the French, which is still going ahead at this stage.
"It was an interesting one, we certainly took advantage of the break," said Griggs.
"We were able to give the squad the weekend off and made sure then they stepped away from rugby, had a down week to refresh.
"It's actually really helped us in terms of recovery, but obviously going forward it's going to be quite a battle to get ourselves back up.
"We're three weeks out with no games, where we felt we were really quite match-hardened and coming off that England game we wanted to rectify some of those opportunities that we missed.
"So that's our challenge this week, to really make sure we step up in camp."
Griggs is bringing a 35-strong squad together to begin preparations for the France game.
But Ireland lost Lindsay Peat for the remainder of the championship after the experienced prop suffered a leg break in the England game.
Griggs says that he won't rush centre Sene Naoupu back unless she's ready, despite her scans coming back clear after she was also injured against England.
"We'll continue to monitor her and look after her, if she gets back, great, but we certainly won't push her with the season that we've got coming up," he said.
IRELAND SQUAD: A Hughes, A Caplice, A O'Hora, A Doyle, A McDermott, C Cooney, C Griffin, C Keohane, C McLaughlin, C Moloney, D Wall, E McMahon, E Considine, E Murphy, E Breen, G Miller, H O'Connor, H Tyrell, J Bobbett, K Dane, K Fitzhenry, K O'Dwyer, L Muldoon, L Feely, L Sheehan, L Delany, L Lyons, L Djougang, M Claffey, N Jones, N Fryday, N Cronin, S Naoupu, S Touhey, VD O'Mahony
