Monday, February 08, 2010
ITALIAN coach Nick Mallett has warned Ireland’s opponents to brace themselves for a more vigorous challenge in the weeks ahead.
The South African firmly believes the best is yet to come from Ireland despite showing little of the form that propelled them to Grand Slam glory last year and victory over world champions South Africa in the autumn.
"What I would say about Ireland is that they are a very good side, very pragmatic, they have a fantastic set of backs but only use them if they get good front-foot ball; otherwise they tend to concentrate on other areas, so I don’t think we saw the full range of their game on Saturday," he said.
Mallett was particularly disappointed at Italy’s embarrassing lack of success in the set pieces but the coach looked at Italy’s ability to defend in the second half as a job well done.
"Because Ireland are so dangerous behind the scrum, our job in defence was to make sure that they didn’t get front-foot ball and in the second half we made sure of that. I thought our defence was outstanding.
"Italy have to play really well in every Six Nations game just to compete; at 23-8 there was a real possibility that we could have shipped another two or three tries with all the ball Ireland had, but I’m proud of the fact that we didn’t and conceded only six more points," he said.
But Mallett wasn’t so pleased with the first half decision by French referee Romain Poite to send Gonzalo Garcia to the sin-bin for an alleged ‘spear’ tackle on Brian O’Driscoll, who was equally perplexed at the call.
"The yellow card was harsh, I didn’t think it was a dangerous tackle and I asked the player why he hadn’t followed the Irish player to the ground; he explained that as he made the tackle he saw the pass go behind his back and his first instinct was to let the player go, to get out of the tackle as fast as he could to defend the next phase. It certainly wasn’t a tackle where he went to hurt or did hurt the player; there were a couple of penalties against Ireland for high tackles and there was no yellow card. I suppose when a tackle is made by a scrum half the referee is usually much more sympathetic."
One down, four to go and Italy limp back to Rome to lick their wounds and plan for Martin Johnson’s England, whose demolition of Wales in the line outs suggests Mallett’s men could be in for another tough day at the office.
"If there is a good thing in defeat it is that we were tenacious in defence and the things that went wrong – the line out – can be worked on. This is a long and arduous competition and one thing we didn’t want was to start off with conceding 40 points; it doesn’t matter if the team you’re playing are champions or not, you certainly don’t want to be beaten that badly and in many ways I’m proud of the guys for the second half display," he said.
And Ireland’s chances in Paris?
"Good I think; look they’re a quality side with a fantastic back line that has a lot more potential than they were allowed to show today. The pack is unlikely to be roughed up by anyone so that really puts them in with a shout against anyone and they don’t seem to worry about where they play."
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