This was not as grim and attritional as some of us had feared. It was worse. It was a match from the old school: attritional, largely risk-free and, particularly in Ireland’s case, too disjointed for a team considered to be the fourth favourites to lift the Rugby World Cup. Their 16-9 victory ensures they will qualify for the knockout stages, but they will need to significantly improve against France next weekend if they are to top Group D and avoid the All Blacks in the quarter-finals.
The list of positives that Ireland can take from this game is not a long one. There was the impressive performance of the young Ulster lock Iain Henderson, who was rightly named man of the match. The try scored by Keith Earls, the only one of the match, which made him Ireland’s record World Cup try scorer with eight – one ahead of Brian O’Driscoll. And there was the satisfaction of getting the job done despite playing poorly. Ireland have now won 18 of their last 22 internationals, which is not a record to be sniffed at. But England’s coaching staff will not be the only one’s conducting a rigorous postmortem.
As Ireland’s coach, Joe Schmidt, admitted afterwards: “We knew it was going to be tough. The Italians came with a win-at-all-costs attitude but a few times we made it tough for ourselves as well. That was not the momentum we were looking for going into next week. I said before the game I would take a one-point victory but even a one-score game was pretty tough on the heart.”
But when the Ireland captain, Paul O’Connell, was asked whether putting in a bad performance might be an advantage for the rest of the tournament he shook his head. “It’s just a timely reminder of where we need to be,” he said. “It looked flat at times and it was flat at times. If we turn over the ball to France with their carriers we’ll be in big trouble. They are an incredible team with incredible talent. They have size and physicality and it’s always a massive challenge for us.”
O’Connell did raise a smile, however, when asked what he would say to England fans with an Irish grandmother looking for a new team to support at this World Cup. “We are available for selection for support,” he replied. “After that we’ll need all the help we can get.”
A feature of this tournament has been the large sea of green shirts at every Ireland game, boisterously urging their team on, but this time the Olympic Stadium crowd was a little quieter, the cries of “Ireland, Ireland!”, a little more restless. Partly that was due to Joe Schmidt’s side being nowhere near as fluent as expected in their first serious test of the tournament. But the Italians too deserve credit. They were far more creative and disruptive than in their opening two matches against France and Canada.
Eight of Ireland’s starting XV had been part of the team that had beaten Italy 36-6 in Dunedin four years ago, but it quickly became evident there would be no repeat. Ireland scored an early penalty through Johnny Sexton, converted after Lorenzo Cittadini had strayed offside but the Italians soon levelled through the boot of Tommaso Allan.
Ireland’s play was repeatedly too sluggish but a try after 19 minutes finally lifted the crowd on their feet. Italy’s lineout was won by Peter O’Mahony and from a ruck Sexton flipped an inside pass to Robbie Henshaw, who fed it to Earls, who went over from close range.
But Italy were not about to buckle, not with their inspirational captain, Sergio Parisse, back and cajoling them on. Four weeks’ ago he was on the operating table because of a calf haematoma. Three weeks ago he was on crutches. And having missed Italy’s first two games he was determined to make up for lost time.
He was far from fit, which was hardly a surprise given he started training again only on Tuesday, and he had his left calf, knee and most of his left arm taped up. But it was his break that earned the Italians another penalty which was again kicked by Allan to make it 10-6 at half-time. For the first time Italian voices could be heard in the Olympic Stadium.
Schmidt had expected his team to gradually increase the squeeze in the second half, but further sloppy play – including a knock-on from Earls – allowed the Italians to launch a vigorous attack and it needed a desperate tackle by O’Mahony to drag Josh Furno into touch inches before the try line. As Parisse admitted afterwards that moment might have been critical.
“The entire world was expecting Ireland to roll over us by 50 points; if we had scored there perhaps the result would have been different,” he said. “Ireland didn’t take many risks, particularly in the second half, they used their kicking game to bring home the victory.”
The Italians kept badgering away and when Allan slotted over another penalty the score was 10-9 after 51 minutes. The Ireland fans, sensing their team were under pressure, urged them on and two quick Sexton penalties allowed them to breathe a little easier. It proved to be enough, despite O’Mahony receiving a yellow card with nine minutes remaining after using his shoulder on Furno’s head.
But Schmidt knows his team will need to improve against France. “It’s going to be incredibly hard to beat them,” he admitted. “They are armed with more weaponry than what we saw against Italy. I will be doing a lot of analysis over the next 48 hours to come up with a plan.”
Ireland: Zebo; Bowe, Earls (Fitzgerald, 76), Henshaw, D Kearney; Sexton, Murray; McGrath (Healy, 58), Best (Cronin, 70), Ross (White, 58), Henderson (Toner, 67), O’Connell, O’Mahony, O’Brien (Henry, 67), Heaslip.
Sin-bin O’Mahony 72.
Try Earls. Con Sexton. Pens Sexton 3.
Italy McLean; Sarto, Campagnaro, Garcia, Venditti; Allan (Canna, 65), Gori (Palazzani, 76); Agüero (Rizzo, 62), Manici (Giazzon, 42), Cittadini (Chistolini, 62), Geldenhuys, Furno, Minto, Favaro (Bergamasco, 67), Parisse.
Pens Allan 3.
Referee Jérôme Garcès (Fr). Att 52,187.
