Les Bleus will be far less forgiving

CALL it ring rust, opening-night nerves or over-eagerness but whatever the cause, Ireland have plenty to put right after this error-laden performance in Rome.

And quickly.

Grand Slam winners France visit Dublin in six days and they will be far less lenient than Italy of the sloppy handling, misjudged passing and penalty-conceding traits displayed by the Irish in this opening Six Nations fixture, a narrow and barely deserved victory at Stadio Flaminio on Saturday.

The good news is that those mistakes, numerous as they were, are all quick, simple fixes for there was no catastrophic failure in any department, as was the case at times during the autumn internationals.

Indeed, the defence was solid, as was the lineout, restarts have improved by a distance since November and try-scoring opportunities, if not properly executed, were certainly well-crafted.

The breakdown was problematic with referee Romain Poite consistently on Ireland’s case about handling in the ruck, the French official finally losing his patience and sin-binning Denis Leamy — the first to sin following a final team warning.

And the scrum will still concern the Irish coaches as referee Poite penalised the front row five times to Italy’s once, contributing to an overall penalty count of 13-5 against the visitors with three free-kicks also conceded.

Yet the man with the whistle may have something to do with that, certainly as far as Declan Kidney was concerned after the match.

As for the unforced errors — among which saw captain Brian O’Driscoll pass into touch when an unmarked Fergus McFadden, five metres out, would have been the better option, and Gordon D’Arcy knock on two metres from the try line – the coach was understanding, although acutely aware that a repeat of those mistakes next week could prove fatal to his sides Six Nations title ambitions.

“Knowing the players, I know how hard they try,” Kidney said. “We had a few wild passes and then once we did that, we just tried harder and harder again and that’s a frustration, but it’s a positive frustration. We just have to calm down and hang onto the ball and not force things as much as we were doing.

“If we turn over the ball as often as we did today, France will be delighted with us. We just have to make sure that we don’t do that.”

Overall, Kidney might be permitted some satisfaction that his injury-hit squad, missing 10 players across three key areas, the front and back rows of the pack and the back three, survived this almighty challenge from a fitter, more durable Italian side. And the new combinations on display will benefit from their matchtime and an extra week together on the training pitch.

Kidney will consider changes as well. There were games to forget from the experienced backs Tomas O’Leary and D’Arcy at scrum-half and inside centre respectively.

“We didn’t excel at anything really,” Kidney reflected afterwards. “I’m not going to try and bask in the elation of having gotten away with it.

“We defended strongly when we did turn the ball over, I thought the back three brought the ball back to them and that’s what we were hoping they would do, I though the back row defended strongly and the front-row, it was a new combination, I know Mike Ross and Cian Healy have been playing together but they were with a new hooker (Rory Best) and we were told that the scrum would go on the clear and obvious and the referee had his own interpretation of the clear and obvious and that went the way it went.

“But I’m not going to blow smoke up anybody, all parts of our game need to improve.”

Leamy’s yellow card nearly cost Ireland the game, allowing the Italians to capitalise on their extra man by scoring a 75th minute try through Luke McLean that edged the Azzurri into an 11-10 lead with five minutes to go, Mirco Bergamasco’s missed conversion keeping the game on a knife-edge.

Leamy had his Munster team-mate Ronan O’Gara to thank for getting him and out of jail, however. Not for the first time, the veteran fly-half, who had replaced a sure-footed Jonny Sexton 12 minutes earlier, came to the rescue, his drop goal edging Ireland back in front with two minutes to go as Italian emotions plunged from elation to despair and Ireland’s experience told.

Substitute fly-half Luciano Orquera tried to respond but his drop-kick was about 10 metres further back than O’Gara’s had been and had more than a hint of desperation about it.

“Well, there are things you can’t coach,” Kidney said, “you either have it or you don’t – and we have it. That was a time we could have just panicked but, both in attack and defence, we didn’t.

“The kick-off went right, the scrum went right, we had a seven-man scrum, hung onto the ball, put ourselves right for the drop goal, dropped the goal, and then when they kicked off we managed to keep our defensive line, to the 10-metre line for the large part, and then when they eventually encroached to what, about 25 out? That meant the drop goal had to come from 35 out and then you force it (the drop goal) a little bit and it falls short – it’s margins.”

Margins Ireland can barely afford to dabble with against the French.

ITALY: L McLean; A Masi, G Canale, A Sgarbi (G Garcia, 70), M Bergamasco; K Burton (L Orquera, 72), E Gori (P Canavosio, 10); S Perugini (A Lo Cicero, 36-41 and 64), L Ghiraldini (F Ongaro, 64), M Castrogiovanni, S Dellape (C Del Fava, 57), Q Geldenhuys, J Sole (V Bernabo, 51), A Zanni, S Parisse — captain.

IRELAND: L Fitzgerald; F McFadden, B O’Driscoll, G D’Arcy (P Wallace, 77), K Earls; J Sexton (R O’Gara, 66), T O’Leary (E Reddan, 64); C Healy, R Best (S Cronin, 77), M Ross (T Court, 77), D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell (L Cullen, 74), D Leamy, D Wallace, S O’Brien.

Referee: Romain Poite (France).