Lessons learned from that painful English defeat
NINETEEN games have come and gone since Italy last won a Six Nations match, but Johnny Sexton is more focused on making sure he doesn’t taste a second loss in three outings for Ireland.
The Grand Slam winners are looking to steady the ship after an unconvincing start to the defence of their Six Nations crown.
Ireland were much improved against Scotland following their 12-point trimming at home to England in the opening round, and they will fancy their chances of claiming an eighth straight win against the Azzurri.
Italy have been competitive in their first two games of the competition, but defeats by 13 points and 11 to Scotland and Wales mean they’re struggling to avoid the wooden spoon yet again. A rare win over the reigning champions would be a huge boost to Conor O’Shea’s Italian project.
Evidence and form point to an Ireland win and flyhalf Sexton says the aim is to shake off the final strands of disappointment that linger from the loss against England.
“Every game is important that you get to play for Ireland,” said world player of the year Sexton.
“It was always going to be important but, after losing the first game, it’s really important now we get back to our level or performance. It’s a good learning for us because we’d rather it happened now and say ‘right we need to get better at this’ and take it on into the rest of the Six Nations and then into the summer series and the World Cup.
“Sometimes you train and prepare unbelievably well, and against England I thought things were going great in training. And then you don’t perform on the Saturday. There are lots of reasons for that.
“Joe [Schmidt] says it really well: ‘I think rugby is the most interdependent sport in the world’. If things aren’t right with the guy either side of you and things aren’t clicking, it’s hard to perform as an individual, as a team. It only takes a couple of cogs in the wheel to be off and things aren’t quite right.
“You’ll still see Ireland trying to win the game and play really well and that’ll be important for, not only this weekend, but going forward and trying to implement some of the new things that we’ve been trying to do.”
This Italian side have had their fair share of sporting setbacks, and only three of the 2015 team that beat Scotland in Italy’s last win in the competition start against Ireland: Luca Morisi, Leonardo Ghiraldini and Tomasso Allan. Replacement Alessandro Zanni and Tito Tabaldi are the only other players in the matchday squad to have experienced winning a Six Nations game.
After all that disappointment, O’Shea thinks character building is the key ingredient for his side.
“It’s a fascinating challenge,” he said. “Not just personally to keep on coming back, but as a squad. I think if you can’t show or demonstrate both hope and progression then you’re in trouble.
“If you look at games and see that there is hope and progression...we feel that we are putting in place things with a lot of the work we have done in the last couple of years. We feel we are really beginning to make strides and climbing the mountain in front of us.”
The signs of progress are there to be seen in the PRO14 where Benetton are currently joint second in Conference B ahead of Ulster, Scarlets and Dragons, while the county’s U20s beat Scotland in their opening game and defeated Scotland and Wales last season.
Nine of that Benetton team start today, with four players from Zebre and one Wasp, while they are captained by Toulouse’s Leonardo Ghiraldini in the absence of concussionvictim Sergio Parisse.
Injury has been the story from the Ireland camp so far, and Joey Carbery misses out due to a hamstring strain and Robbie Henshaw has been given another week to recover from a dead leg.
Chris Farrell has shaken off a knee injury to start in the centre, while there is an all-Connacht second row partnership of Ultan Dillane and Quinn Roux. In his 68th appearance for Ireland Sean Cronin will start his first Six Nations game.
Schmidt said: “Our preparation has been really good but this will be a real challenge with the changes we’ve got.”