O'Sullivan happy with performance

Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan refused to criticise his players for conceding the late try which could yet cost them the RBS 6 Nations title.

The Triple Crown holders thrashed Italy 51-24 at the Stadio Flaminio, giving them an excellent chance of overhauling France and winning the championship.

Les Bleus must beat Scotland by more than 23 points to retain their crown and their cause was helped when Roland de Marigny crashed over for a late try converted by Andrea Scanavacca.

Ireland had the chance to kick the ball out before the Italy full-back scored but went looking for another try instead and lost possession.

O’Sullivan said: “I’d have preferred it if we hadn’t given that last try away but you have to put it into context in that we were trying to score points.

“If you do that there’s a chance you’ll give them away. We scored some good tries. We wanted to keep a clean slate and our defence was good, but they came up with a good try at the end.”

Girvan Dempsey and Denis Hickie ran in a brace of tries each while Simon Easterby, Gordon D’Arcy, Shane Horgan and Ronan O’Gara also crossed in a ruthless display of finishing from the Irish.

O’Sullivan added: “I’m very happy with that performance. When you score 50 points with tries like we did you must be happy.

“We struggled at the set piece in the first half but still scored tries. We thought there would be opportunities in the second half and that was the way it worked out.” Ireland’s victory was marred by a hamstring injury to Brian O’Driscoll who had to be helped from the pitch in the second half.

O’Sullivan said: “Brian has a serious hamstring strain. We don’t know the extent of the damage but he’s in a lot of pain.

“We’ll go back to base and see what the damage is, but it doesn’t look great at the moment.”

Italy skipper Marco Bortolami claimed Ireland would be worthy RBS 6 Nations champions if they went on the win the championship.

“Ireland are the best team in the tournament. The Six Nations is very tough so even though they lost to France they still played the best rugby,” he said.

The Azzurri were on the scent of an unprecedented hat-trick of Celtic scalps but Ireland’s precision attacking game left them in tatters this afternoon.

“This is a difficult moment for us. We tried to have a reaction in the last 20 minutes when we scored two tries and that was pleasing,” said Bortolami.

“We know we can improve and will work hard to improve again. It was a little bit disappointing.

“Ireland play best rugby in Europe at the moment and we knew this would be a very hard game for us.

“They kept the ball in hand and scored a lot of points. We had two wins before this match but we still have a lot of work to do before the World Cup.”