O’Mahony says bad memories will keep Irish fully focused
Peter O’Mahony, the Ireland captain, says he expects his team to play more “flowing rugby” than they did in their games against England and Scotland when they come up against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico today.
The Munster back rower added that memories of Ireland’s only Six Nations defeat by the Azzurri, in head coach Declan Kidney’s final match in charge in 2013, still sent “shivers” down his spine and would ensure Ireland remained fully focused on the job in hand today. O’Mahony will lead his country for the seventh occasion, with regular captain Rory Best one of the firstchoice players to be benched as head coach Joe Schmidt rotates his squad.
After leading his team on the captain’s run in Rome yesterday, O’Mahony claimed that memories of that lacklustre 22-15 defeat six years ago still haunt him to this day. “It does remind you,” he said of being back in the Stadio Olimpico. “Coming down the tunnel there, there’s a hoarding inside where they do the media [interviews] and I remember doing media that day and I got a shiver down my spine.
“You just don’t like losing, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in Rome or at home. There’s big days out there when you win things, but it’s funny, the days you lose are the days that stand out at times. It shouldn’t be the way, but that’s how it is. We’ll be looking for a big performance. We understand how difficult it is every time you come to Rome, we know the physicality required.”
O’Mahony said that having won a hard-fought contest against Scotland at Murrayfield a fortnight ago, he hoped that Ireland had got their brutal 32-20 opening-round defeat by England out of their system. “We’ll certainly be looking to improve from the last couple of games we’ve been out and be a bit more cohesive, certainly the combinations that we’ve picked,” he said. “We want to flow, we certainly want to play rugby and, as I said, a little bit more cohesion and a bit more patience at times.”
Best has been rested, along with prop Cian Healy and lock James Ryan. But O’Mahony denied Ireland would be unduly affected.