Positives to be taken from first outing

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP OPENING MATCH AT CROKE PARK Ireland 29 Italy 11: THERE ARE, as is quite often the case, two ways of looking at this. Glass half-empty types will perhaps see this as hints of second season syndrome and an ominous barometer for Paris next Saturday.

Those of a half-full nature may be more of a mind to regard this as grand for starters, so to speak. Le Crunch will tell the tale but for the moment the latter theory sounds more plausible.

Croker at 2.30 in the afternoon with Italy the visitors is hardly the most inspiring of occasions, and will not compare to Saturday tea-time in Paris although, at a fairly extortionate €75 a pop, this was hardly value for money, especially the snore fest that was the second-half. That was right up there with watching paint dry.

But the players can’t be blamed for the IRFU’s ticket pricing, while thrill-a-minute try fests or titanic battles cannot be guaranteed every time – otherwise we’d never know the difference – and least of all when the Italians and referee Romain Poite are in town.

Not for the first time, the French official could have shown more feeling for the game at times, and scarcely penalised the breakdown any better than he did the offside line.

Still, there were positives. Beginning with the foundation blocks, all the pre-match concerns about Ireland’s set-pieces and primarily their scrum proved – once again – unfounded. It’s amazing what can happen when eight players scrum together, remarked Declan Kidney afterwards.

The net result was that Cian Healy (taking on three opponents in turn), Jerry Flannery (who can be pretty pleased with a very solid all-round effort in his first game for 10 weeks save for an hour’s club rugby) and John Hayes scarcely conceded an inch, while also coming off better in Poite’s interpretations.

The line-out was a bountiful supply of ball, Ireland retaining all but one of their own throws (Rory Best’s first dart was crooked) and snaffling seven of the Italians. Their poor skipper Leonardo Ghiraldini couldn’t hit the proverbial barn door from two paces and his most unforgivable error was overthrowing to Carlo del Fava on the Italian line at a shortened line-out.

Leo Cullen duly snaffled up the gift and from the recycle Tomás O’Leary plundered Ireland’s second try, effectively sealing the game four minutes before the break. In deciphering and dismantling the Italian line-out, this was another feather in Gert Smal’s cap and a credit to the work of Cullen and Paul O’Connell.

The immense O’Connell also chased down a couple of Ronan O’Gara’s excellent restarts which in turn led to O’Gara landing two of his four penalties in a six-from-six haul of 16 points. The gauntlet having been thrown down to him, O’Gara has responded as you’d expect. He struck the ball well all day and his flat right-to-left double skip pass which took out three opponents to release Andrew Trimble was, for pure skill, the moment of the day.

With O’Connell on hand in support, along with Kearney, the move was kept alive and quick hands by O’Driscoll helped Jamie Heaslip score amid hints of a forward pass by David Wallace.

Perhaps though, the fear of losing had left them after O’Leary’s try and with that an edge went out of Ireland’s performance. Rob Kearney will have copped plenty of blame for the chargedown try he conceded to Kaine Robertson just before the interval. Both he and Andrew Trimble could have shown a good deal more urgency in dealing with Craig Gower’s kick to the corner, and his low trajectory, delayed kick was somehow symptomatic of the relatively sloppy second period which followed.

Yet it was hardly Kearney’s fault that Ireland failed to press home their advantage after taking a 23-3 lead and with their opponents still down to 14 men. In registering their 13th win in a row over Italy and achieving a new Irish record of a dozen games unbeaten, it’s easy to overlook that the 18-point winning margin was actually bigger than any of Ireland’s previous four home victories over the Azzurri.

By contrast, all but one of the last five wins in Rome have been by bigger margins. In the Stadio Flaminio, Italy are perhaps inspired and/or obliged to open up and attack more in the Roman air. After all, two of Ireland’s five tries there in last season’s 38-9 win were courtesy of interceptions. There wasn’t much chance of Italy coughing up an intercept on Saturday. That would have required them to take a risk, or even put some width or air on the ball.

All the more so without their one world-class player, Sergio Parisse, the Azzurri aren’t exactly the world’s great entertainers just now. They are incredibly patterned, and while clearly well drilled, the interminable waiting as Tito Tebaldi lined up two pods of alternate forwards to take the ball into contact was hardly likely to take Ireland by surprise.

If designed to keep Ireland guessing, in fact it often ended up fooling Tebaldi’s intended carrier given the frequency with which the pill was spilled.

Tebaldi also excessively overdid the box kicking. One on occasion, in the 48th minute, Italy worked their way up to the Irish 22 and lined up deep on the blind side as Tebaldi again weighed up his options. Whereupon he kicked aimlessly to Trimble and the Irish winger had time to pass inside to Kearney for a relieving kick.

Yet the Azzurri kept their shape impressively in defence, working hard for each other throughout, and are nothing if not bruisingly obdurate opposition.

After such a physically punishing encounter, Ireland will be grateful for a full seven-day turnaround. The rest of us were just grateful it was over.

Scoring sequence: 10 mins: O'Gara pen 3-0; 15 mins: Heaslip try, O'Gara con 10-0; 27 mins: Gower pen 10-3; 28 mins: O'Gara pen 13-3; 34 mins: O'Gara pen 16-3; 36 mins: O'Leary try, O'Gara con 23-3; 39 mins: Robertson try 23-8; 45 mins: Mirco Bergamasco pen 23-11; 46 mins: O'Gara pen 26-11; 68 mins: P Wallace pen 29-11.

IRELAND:R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster capt), G D'Arcy (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster); R O'Gara (Munster), T O'Leary (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), J Flannery (Munster), J Hayes (Munster); L Cullen (Leinster), P O'Connell (Munster), K McLaughlin (Leinster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: R Best (Ulster) for Flannery, K Earls (Munster) for Trimble (both 56 mins), D Ryan (Munster) for O'Connell (60 mins), P Wallace (Ulster) for O'Gara (65 mins), T Court (Ulster) for Hayes, S O'Brien (Leinster) for Wallace (both 72 mins), E Reddan (Leinster) for O'Leary (73 mins).

ITALY: L McLean (Benetton Treviso); K Robertson (Viadana), G Canale (Clermont-Aubergne), G Garcia (Benetton Treviso), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Francais); C Gower (Bayonne), T Tebaldi (Gran Parma); S Perugini (Bayonne), L Ghiraldini (Benetton Treviso), M Castrogiovanni (Leicester Tigers), C Del Fava (Viadana), Q Geldenhuys (Viadana), J Sole (Viadana), Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Francais), A Zanni (Benetton Treviso). Replacements: M Bortolami (Gloucester) for del Fava (49 mins), M Aguero (Saracens) for Castrogiovanni (56 mins), A Masi (Racing Metro Paris) for Robertson (58 mins), S Picone (Treviso) for Tebaldi (65 mins), R Bocchino (Rovigo) for Gower (65-74 mins), Castrogiovanni for Perugini, F Ongaro (Saracens) for Ghiraldini (both 72 mins). Not used: P Derbyshire (Petrarca Padova). Sinbinned: Garcia (33-43 mins).

Referee: Romain Poite(France).