Far from perfect but Ireland get World Cup journey started with a win

Jack Conan was wearing a moon boot in what Andy Farrell will hope is just a precaution. 

UP AND RUNNING: Ireland get their World Cup preparations underway as they defeat Italy at the Aviva Stadium in a warm-up game. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Ireland 33 Italy 17 

Andy Farrell had called for his Ireland team to be at its best for this first of three Rugby World Cup warm-ups. A deeply unfamiliar XV, and 23, certainly didn’t manage that but they did get the job done. More taxing and important matters lie in wait.

Three first-half tries got the game in hand for hosts who had another two cancelled out by Italy in a speckled second-half, but there are concerns on the injury front after this as they turn towards a week of warm-weather training in Portugal.

Jack Conan had put on a monstrous show before walking off and straight down the tunnel before the interval. He later reappeared in a moon boot and he won’t need reminding that his 2019 World Cup ended prematurely with a foot in the very same protective shell.

Craig Casey was another earlier-than-planned departure with the Munster scrum-half lasting just minutes after the restart before making way. The nature of both issues remains to be confirmed but such is the way of these half-light games.

Jack Crowley took an enormous hit in the last ten minutes but rose to his feet and played on. Holding our breath as an Irish out-half receives on-field treatment is a national pastime by now but that doesn’t make it any easier.

All told, then, this brought up an eleventh straight win for the team ranked tops in the world rankings. An England team stuffed on Saturday by Wales and a meeting with Samoa in Bayonne will follow before the end of August.

Farrell’s expectations aside, this was never going to go like clockwork.

It did, in fact, start one minute late, Paolo Garbisi eventually getting the evening underway and Ireland starting it off in less than convincing fashion when Conan was held up in the tackle and Italy were awarded the scrum.

Tommaso Allan duly kicked over the penalty and Ireland’s rustiness was apparent again over the first quarter with Jacob Stockdale, to take one example, being dragged into touch and then dilly-dallying with a clearing kick in his own 22.

Other than that, Conan’s and Stockdale’s performances showed just how Ireland were slipping into gear with the pair of them accounting for 22 carries in the first-half hour and the Ulster winger running for 127 metres.

Stockdale took one high catch that made the stadium gasp and almost set up a try for Jimmy O’Brien, but Ireland didn’t have to rue that close-run thing with three touch downs in the 13th, 28th and 36th minutes from Dave Kilcoyne, Caelan Doris and Stuart McCloskey.

The first came from a tap penalty, the second was a maul off a lineout and the third landed on the back of a brutal counter ruck under the Italian posts. The latter pair came while loosehead prop Danilo Frischetti was in the sinbin.

None of them were works of art, more like products of hard work and clinical execution.

If the collective was starting to purr then the individual performances were even more encouraging, Stockdale and Conan being backed up by a superb effort in the unfamiliar No.7 shirt by Doris, a captain’s display from Iain Henderson and Ryan Baird was busy too.

Tom O’Toole and Joe McCarthy, two inexperienced heads, were making inroads, Jimmy O’Brien was looking a man born to the task in his role as full-back understudy to Hugo Keenan and the half-backs were tipping away nicely.

Casey was injecting a nice tempo and energy into the attacking game as Ireland enjoyed front foot ball and Crowley was mixing things up casually with a skip pass here, a run there and a deep kick for territory just for good measure.

Assured is the word that came to mind.

Farrell had clearly seen all he needed to in terms of Crowley at ten – and O’Brien at 15 – given he handed Ciaran Frawley, whose elevation had been delayed for so long by injury, his Test debut off the bench for the entire second-half.

O’Brien had been a frequent distributor in the line during his 40 minutes and the Frawley/Crowley axis was just as obvious. The two playmakers were taking it in turns to direct matters but Ireland stuttered on the restart.

Italy are not the pushovers of old and they made the most of their early second-half dominance by claiming a well-worked try for Lorenzo Pani who shrugged off a poorly executed Stockdale tackle before tipping down wide on the right.

Allan added the pair on top to make it 21-10.

Farrell’s stated ambition for a smooth as silk first outing was always going to be more difficult as the second-half wore on and the raft of replacements – some of them green in every sense – flooded the playing area.

Tom Stewart and Calvin Nash both joined Frawley in making their senior bows and it took Ireland a full 25 minutes of the second period to put together something that was functional enough to get over the line for a fourth try.

Cian Healy provided the finishing touch off the back of a well-executed maul that was followed by a handful of pick-an-goes close to the Azzurri line, but Italy responded in kind right away with Tommaso Menoncello doing the honours.

Keith Earls, switched to centre by now, coughed up the last tackle this time.

Doris claimed his second and Ireland’s fifth to close out the scoring but Ireland finished the game camped on their own line. Work to do, then, but that was always going to be the case after a long pre-season.

So too, unfortunately, the injury scares and Ireland's problems in that regard were nothing like the casualty list suffered by their opponents.

Ireland: J O’Brien; K Earls, R Henshaw, S McCloskey, J Stockdale; J Crowley, C Casey; D Kilcoyne, R Herring, T O’Toole; I Henderson, J McCarthy; R Baird, C Doris, J Conan.

Replacements: C Prendergast for Conan (36); C Frawley for O’Brien (HT); C Blade for Casey (45); T Stewart for Herring, C Healy for Kilcoyne and T Furlong for O’Toole (all 52); T Beirne for Henderson (56); C Nash for Henshaw (62).

Italy: T Allan; P Odogwu, I Brex, T Menoncello, M Ioane; P Garbisi, S Varney; D Fischetti, G Nicoreta, M Riccioni; D Lamb, F Ruzza; S Negri, M Zuliani, L Cannone.

Replacements: S Ferrari for Riccioni (10); L Pani for Odogwu (23); P Buonfiglio for Pani (35-39) and for Fischetti (60); M Lamaro for Zuliani (40); A Fusco for Varney (HT); N Cannone for Lamb (46); L Bigi for Nicotera (56); G Pettinelli for Negri (74).

Referee: M Reynal (France).