Ireland aim to improve as they shift focus to England
ROME: Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has warned the defending Six Nations champions they will have to up their game if they are to impress against France next week before the arguably tougher assignment of facing co-favourites England.
Ireland took the first step towards defending their crown with a 26-3 win over long-suffering Italy with Conor Murray and Tommy O’Donnell scoring second-half tries and flyhalf Ian Keatley added 14 points with the boot.
Yet it was a largely disjointed performance from both sides at the Stadio Olimpico until Murray touched over just after the hour when the hosts were reduced to 14 men following Leonardo Ghiraldini’s trip to the sin bin.
Having watched England’s stirring second-half fightback to claim a 21-16 win over Wales on Friday, Schmidt said he was impressed with how both sides went about their business at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
But the New Zealander believes England “have set the benchmark” for this year’s tournament, and already given his side a fair idea of what might be required if they are to emerge victorious in Dublin in three weeks’ time.
“The benchmark was set by England last night in that second half... England just kept the pressure right on them,” Schmidt said.
“The physical nature of that battle... it certainly means we’ve got a lot to do. We’ll have to roll our sleeves up early on next week and hopefully put together a sufficiently improved performance to be competitive against France.”
He added: “For us, we certainly need to up our game. I do think that part of it was the pressure Italy put on us, but at the same time I know we can do better than that, and we’re going to have to.”
Ireland were shorn of several regulars who helped them secure last year’s title as they travelled to the Italian capital intent on making amends for their 22-15 defeat to the Italians two years ago.
But any worries Schmidt had about his young side were dispelled just after the hour mark when Murray, then O’Donnell — a late replacement for Sean O’Brien after he suffered a twinge to his hamstring in the warm-up — touched down to put the match beyond the reach of the hosts 14 minutes from the final whistle.
Schmidt admitted O’Brien’s absence had partly led to a “disjointed” first-half but he was quick to praise the new faces in his side, in particular flyhalf Keatley, centre Robbie Henshaw and flanker Jordi Murphy.