Ireland could find itself on the end of a New Zealand backlash to its first-up loss to Australia when they meet at BIL Oval tomorrow in the CricInfo Women's World Cup.

The game is one that New Zealand should win, and win comfortably. But it carries its own dangers of allowing the New Zealanders to fall into bad habits. Eliminating that is vital to the team's advance.

Upsetting that advance is the Irish aim.

"Tomorrow is the start of another day in the tournament, when we get back on track," New Zealand captain Emily Drumm said.

"We had a good briefing today after our loss and talked about things that can help us and about what we can do to help ourselves.

"We're not too downhearted or put off," she said.

The side was aware that standards could slip against lesser teams.

"You do get a bit complacent when the teams are not as strong, so we have to watch that.

"You have to be clinical with your cricket. That is why Debbie Hockley is so successful, she is so clinical in her skills work. You have to punish bad bowling," she said.

New Zealand would be looking for another good performance to get its campaign back on track.

"We want to play good cricket, to make lots of runs and to restrict sides in their scoring. We haven't got an attack that can blast a team out. We bowl to contain.

"We want to create pressure because pressure creates wickets," she said.

Ireland's captain Miriam Grealy said her side was dying to get going in the tournament after two good warm-up games against Northern Districts.

"We're going into the game to be positive," she said.

Ideally the side is looking for a top six finish and romantically it would like a semi-final place.

It does have bowling restrictions with only one specialist pace bowler and one specialist spinner in New Zealander Catherine O'Neill but it has several all-rounders.

New Zealand's connection with Ireland, for the modern generation of players, goes back to three ODIs New Zealand played on its British tour of 1996.

"They beat us in all the matches but we learnt a lot from them, especially in their fielding. They were very athletic," she said.

While watching the opening game of the tournament, Grealy was most impressed with New Zealand skipper Emily Drumm's innings of 74.

"I've never seen such a cushy innings from a player, especially after she was hurt as well."

Doing well in the tournament is important for the Irish as they have significant growth occurring in the younger age group of girls at home.

"To make the top four would mean a couple of upsets would have to occur but we are not going to settle just for sixth place," she said.

© CricInfo