Ireland have emerged from Rome with a bonus point victory over Italy, but the manner of the win offers little encouragement. It was a thoroughly poor performance from Ireland, who were outplayed by their hosts in the opening period.
Even when they had the majority of the ball in the second half, Ireland still did not assert themselves on the match. In truth, they were lucky to score four tries, and there will be plenty of work to do ahead of the France game in two weeks.
Speaking to Virgin Media after the game, it was clear that Joe Schmidt was disappointed with his side's performance. He did mention the loss of Bundee Aki as being a major blow early on, but was clear in his opinion that his team were not good enough:
"We're frustrated. We haven't really gelled."
Joe Schmidt spoke to @sineadkissane after today's win in Rome.#ITAvIRE #GuinnessSixNations #VMTVRugby pic.twitter.com/hUKp958XET— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) February 24, 2019
We were too inaccurate... We are normally nailed on at the set-piece, and we didn't quite get that set-piece flow ball. When we did get it, we put the passes down. It was probably reflected at the end there, with Jacob Stockdale did a super job... and then at the end of it we drop the pass...
It is uncharacteristic for us, we don't normally give up those balls. We'll have a look at it and try to reconcile a few things. At the same time, we had an early change with Bundee coming off.
It was probably the worst change that we could have anticipated, that we didn't really have another 12 and it meant that Keith (Earls) had to go into 13, and Andrew hasn't spent a lot of time with us.
We feel a little bit frustrated that we haven't gelled, and we haven't kept the same group together for those first 40 minutes in the last two games, where we would like to get a rhythm together.
Schmidt has a point here. Aki does a lot of the dirty work for Ireland, and was missed throughout the game. Earls played well, but he is far less effective in defence when deployed in the centre.
That can't be used as an excuse for poor showings all over the field, however, and Schmidt will know that a lot of things need to be improved upon.
