Ireland get off to perfect start in Six Nations with dominant display over Italy

Italy 3 Ireland 26

Irish wins over Italy tend not to live long in the memory and if ever there was a case of Italian job done, this was it. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it was entirely effective.

If Ireland were going to subdue Italy and win without too much discomfort, the key was undoubtedly their pack and winning the battle up front. And rarely has an Irish eight done such a number on their Italian counterparts.

Juggernaut mode

The tone was set in the first quarter as the visiting pack went into juggernaut mode, whether through their scrum or lineout maul, which between them yielded three penalties in the first quarter and incalculable psychological damage to Sergio Parisse and his cohorts.

Not for the first time when rendered largely impotent, Parisse was culpable of trying too hard, needlessly giving away two penalties by pushing Tommy Bowe in the air and advancing in front of an Edoardo Gori box kick by about three metres.

Ireland stole four Italian throws and lost two, although that scarcely conveys the whole truth. The quality of Ireland’s ball was the platform for a strong, mauling game that eventually yielded a converted try and a yellow card for Italy.

Indeed, the second converted try also came while Italian hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini was serving his 10 minutes in the bin – an inevitability for a member of the Azzurri pack at some point – when he was one of several culpable of entering the side of an Irish maul in desperation.

Rich supplier

The selection of Mike Ross was vindicated, while Devin Toner’s value to this team as such a rich supplier of quality ball in the air is perhaps taken for granted a little. For his part, Tommy O’Donnell took his initial non-selection and then pre-match promotion in his impressive stride.

As Paul O’Connell noted afterwards, whenever he gets to his feet of late in a Munster jersey it’s usually been to see O’Donnell carrying or tackling, and it was the same here, the flanker bringing his mix of speed, stamina and strength to proceedings.

Depending on which stats you go by, he and Robbie Henshaw were Ireland’s leading tacklers. Having been unluckily shunted onto the ball prematurely by O’Connell to end one of many bouts of Irish recycling, O’Donnell also took his try well when Martin Castrogiovanni was exposed in midfield and the flanker brushed through Andrea Masi.

Clearly handicapped by his heavily strapped right thigh, the Italian fullback has surely never played worse. Milk has turned quicker.

Conor Murray brought real presence and authority, and made the breakthrough with a close-range finish, while Ian Keatley began nervously before growing into the game. The Henshaw-Jared Payne partnership showed promise, with Henshaw outstanding.

Tailor-made for the modern game and growing in confidence, he made 15 tackles and was Ireland’s most reliable source of go-forward ball – 10 times carrying over the gain line on a day when Irish carriers were frequently stopped behind it.

The biggest blight on an understandably rusty Irish performance was that they didn’t put Italy away sooner. It was like watching a boxer pummel an opponent for about a dozen rounds, though often missing the target, eventually knocking him down twice in quick succession but then having to settle for a win on points.

Six points wasn’t much of a buffer for such superiority in the first quarter and the best part of the scoreline after half an hour was the ‘nil’ part. At that point, the Irish scrum won their second penalty of the match to go down the touchline, and a try then would almost have put the game beyond Italy even at that point.

Surprisingly, they opted not for their maul but for one of those trademark power plays, as Murray fed Henshaw for a charge up the middle. Eleven times Murray fed one-off carries, as the emphasis was on risk-free but quick recycling.

The Italians kept making their tackles and on the 11th carry drove Jordi Murphy backwards before the one occasion Ireland did try two passes, with Keatley involved for the first time when working a switch with Simon Zebo, who was isolated and pinged for not releasing.

That was very untypical of this Irish team and on the second occasion they went to the corner, their maul rumbled for a penalty, which Keatley turned into a 9-0 lead. Conceding a three-pointer to Kelly Haimona on half-time was an irritant, but a fourth Keatley penalty finally put Ireland two scores clear again at the end of a dominant third quarter.

The decisive double whammy soon followed.

Nagging suspicion

Ireland failed to press on, and Schmidt and the bench will be aggrieved by that, but there weren’t helped by the late downpour which made conditions worse.

The nagging suspicion remains that on another day – ie later in the championship or when more accurate from the start – Ireland could have put away a poor Italian side by some distance and that one or more of Ireland’s main title rivals could well beat the Azzurri by more. The Azzurri also improved with the introduction of Tommaso Allan at out-half and began offloading.

Hence, while not adding another try, preventing one could conceivably prove just as valuable, even if Ireland were afforded some luck in the TMO spotting the faintest of knock-ons by an utterly fed up Parisse prior to Haimona gathering and grounding from Allan’s chip.

If the championship again comes down to points difference and Ireland were to win it by a score, it literally will have been down to a fingernail.

ITALY: A Masi (Wasps); L Sarto (Zebre), M Campagnaro (Benetton Treviso), L Morisi (Benetton Treviso), L McLean (Sale Sharks); K Haimona (Zebre), E Gori (Benetton Treviso); M Aguero (Zebre), L Ghiraldini (Leicester Tigers), M Castrogiovanni (Toulon), J Furno (Newcastle Falcons), G Biagi (Zebre), A Zanni (Benetton Treviso), F Minto (Benetton Treviso), S Parisse (Stade Francais) (capt). Replacements: M Barbini (Benetton Treviso) for Zanni (47 mins), A de Marchi (Sale Sharks) for Aguero (53 mins), T Allan (Perpignan) for Campagnaro (64 mins), M Fuser (Benetton Treviso) for Barbini (68 mins), D Chistolini (Zebre) for Castrogiovanni, A Manici for Minto (both 69 mins), Minto for Ghiraldini, Barbini for Biagi (both 75 mins), G Venditti (Zebre) for Masi (77 mins). Sinbinned: Ghiraldini (64-74 mins).
IRELAND: R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ulster), J Payne (Ulster), R Henshaw (Connacht), S Zebo (Cork Con/Munster); I Keatley (Munster), C Murray (Munster); J McGrath (Leinster), R Best (Ulster), M Ross (Leinster), D Toner (Leinster), P O'Connell (Munster) (capt), P O'Mahony (Munster), T O'Donnell (Munster), J Murphy (Leinster). Replacements: S Cronin (Leinster) for Best (47 mins), M Moore (Leinster) for Ross (52 mins), I Henderson (Ulster) for O'Mahony, Ian Madigan (Leinster) for Keatley (both 66 mins), J Cronin (Munster) for McGrath, F Jones (Munster) for Payne (both 68 mins), I Boss (Leinster) for Murray (69 mins). Referee: P Gauzère (France).