THIS FELT LIKE a day where Ireland had a golden opportunity to do something special.
With beautiful bright conditions and a record attendance in situ at the RDS, Scott Bemand’s side took to the field aiming to back-up an encouraging display away to France last weekend by putting some points beside their name on the Six Nations table.
Standing in their way was an Italian side who shipped 48 points with no response against England in round one. When Ireland and Italy met in Parma last year, the hosts won 24-7. In 2022, Ireland were 29-8 winners in Cork. These games have been hard to call in the past, but Ireland appeared in good shape to give their home support something to cheer about this time around.
After another belting rendition of Ireland’s Call by Stevie Mulroony – of Late Late Toy Show fame – Ireland made a strong start to this round two clash, dominating the territory and possession as they looked to land some early blows, playing some smart attacking rugby in the process and generating good momentum through their hard-carrying forwards.
For all their endeavour, their only reward was an early penalty try, Italy riding out that initial onslaught to settle into the contest and strike for two first-half tries, despite only enjoying limited access to the Ireland 22.
Across a frustrating afternoon for the hosts Ireland saw a number of scoring chances slip through their fingers, letting Italy off the hook when they looked primed to score.
The post-match stats sheet had Ireland’s total handling errors at 27. The most costly was perhaps the moment midway through the second period when Beibhinn Parsons had the tryline calling, only to knock-on Enya’s Breen’s pass.
To their credit, Ireland stuck in the fight, securing a losing bonus point thanks to Katie Corrigan’s late score, while they were also hammering away in the Italy 22 before turning over the ball with the final play of the game.
When the final whistle sounded, there was an obvious sense of deflation in the stands and on the pitch. This was a game Ireland should have won, and with a record attendance of 6,505 present at the RDS, it felt like a missed opportunity to really spark some life into their Six Nations campaign and give those supporters something to get excited about heading into the remainder of the championship.
“We said we wanted to give the Irish public something to get behind,” said Bemand.
Hopefully there’s bits of that performance that people look at and go ‘yeah, we can get behind that.’
“But yeah, it does feel like a missed opportunity, but those are the experiences and those are the learning we’ve got to take.
“We’re creating a really honest group, so there was some reasonable stuff said after the game (against France) last weekend.
“We went after ourselves pretty hard this week to see where we could improve and where we could take our game forward. You look at how the girls started that game and got out of the blocks. Of course there’s bits in the game, there’s always a few moments in a game where it can go one way or the other, and I think we probably just had a few too many of those today.
“So yeah, it does feel like a missed opportunity.”
Poor decision-making also proved costly.
Twice, Ireland turned down shots at the posts to go to the corner, only to then fail to find touch. The decision to leave three points behind when 7-5 up around the half-hour mark felt particularly significant at the time, with Italy subsequently going down the pitch to add their second try of the game.
“Some of those, we try and let the girls make the on-pitch decision and do what’s right at that point,” Bemand said.
“Clearly at that point in the game the girls felt dominant and on top, and where we want to take our game is we want to be nudging those into a corner, we want to be taking tries, not threes, so we leave it to the strat group, we trust the strat group, and would we do it again?
“We were dominant at that point, it was probably the right thing to do.”
If Ireland are to record their first win of the campaign when Wales come to Cork on 13 April, their game management needs to be better.
After an encouraging defensive display against France, the positives for Ireland here were that they were creating chances and finding some joy in the wide channels. Add a more ruthless edge to the their game, and they can walk away from the Wales game with a better outcome.
