Rugby:Geordan Murphy will put his friendship with Italy prop Martin Castrogiovanni to one side this weekend but is enjoying the pre-match banter with his Leicester teammate. The pair are business partners in a restaurant and with Italy standing between Ireland and the quarter-finals the fullback believes he has the perfect tactic to put his great friend off his game.
"I'm big into my scrummaging, so I'll definitely be telling my forwards about how to scrummage him!" he said. "I'm thinking of leaving some baskets of chips in the corners of the changing room for him. That should do it. The amount he eats, it should distract him quite nicely."
Murphy and Castrogiovanni have been in regular contact throughout the competition, although the volume of messages has increased in recent days.
"He's a good mate of mine, he's a fantastic prop and he's a different character off the field to what he is on it," he said. "He's certainly one of Italy's key players. He's been texting me. The closer the game gets, I'm receiving more and more text messages from him.
"He swears a lot at me in Italian and he's trying to teach me all the bad words. I'm not going to repeat them."
Sunday's showdown will determine who progresses to the quarter-finals out of the Pool C rivals. Ireland are 1/10 favourites to prevail after amassing 15 successive victories in the fixture, but Italy were denied only by a late drop-goal in their last meeting in February.
"It's the biggest game of the pool," said Murphy. "After they lost to Australia, Italy said they're targeting this game. They've openly said they want to reach the quarter-finals, which basically means they're saying they want to beat Ireland.
"They've improved massively over the years. They're a serious side. They're a very physical side but they're playing some good football alongside that now. Some of the tries they're scoring at the World Cup have been good tries. Our backs will be against the wall as much as theirs will.
"It's Italy, but they'll raise their intensity from the Six Nations. It's the World Cup, it's a level up from the Six Nations and I'm sure the game will reflect that."
Ireland have won the last 15 meetings between the two but, given that they needed a last-gasp Ronan O'Gara drop goal to sneak to a 13-11 win in their Rome Six Nations clash this year, they are taking absolutely nothing for granted.
“Everybody in the Irish camp realises we didn’t deserve to win that Six Nations game, but we did and these things happen,” added flanker Shane Jennings. “It was a pretty even game. We set ourselves up for that drop-goal at the end.
“I don’t know really why it happened but we underperformed that day. We knew what we were heading into. It’s always very difficult in Rome. If you give them ball like we did that day, they can do damage and it was a very even game. We’re expecting the same this weekend.”
The scene is set for a fascinating encounter that Jennings insists his side are quietly confident will bridge their path into the knockout stages.
“There will be no complacency. We’re very realistic, certainly not over-confident, but we know we have the ability to win,” said the Leinster openside. “You have to back up the words with a performance and we realise we are up against a very experienced team with some quality players and good leaders.
“The obvious thing that comes out every time you play Italy is that they’ve very physical and can match that with some dangerous runners.”
Rob Kearney (bruised knee), Keith Earls (bruised leg), Sean O’Brien (bruised arm), Tommy Bowe (calf) and Paul O’Connell (hamstring) and Gordon D’Arcy are continuing their rehabilitation from injury, though none have been ruled out against Italy.
