Paul O'Connell has said that Ireland will need to improve "massively" if they are to have a chance of beating France and topping Pool D.
Speaking immediately after the final whistle blew on Ireland's disappointing 16-9 victory over Italy, the Ireland captain said: “We’re into the quarter-finals and that’s a bonus. We always saw this as a knockout game so that’s great for us."
Ireland's performance was not of the expected standard and Italy had their chances to put even more pressure as errors continued to give them a way into the game. A crucial Peter O'Mahony tackle on Josh Furno meant Ireland clung to the lead at a key point in the second half.
“The crowd were amazing, I wish we could have put on a better performance for them."
O'Connell added: "(It was) probably a disappointing performance, very inaccurate. We put too many balls down and when we do that, we can’t play our game. It interrupted any rhythm we got into in the game and gave them momentum.
"You can’t turnover ball to them, guys like Gori, Parisse, Luke McLean. They are all excellent players and when you hand them ball on a plate like that, they’ll do damage to you and they nearly did. It was only a great try-saving tackle by Peter O’Mahony that kept us in the game.”
But Ireland move on and can secure top spot in the pool and a likely quarter-final against Argentina if they can beat France on Sunday. Failure to do so will mean meeting the mighty All Blacks in the last eight.
O'Connell said: "It is going to be a massive game, they are playing some very good rugby at the moment. We are going to have to improve massively from that performance.”
The Irish fans were - once again - a major feature of the day, packing out London's Olympic Stadium and giving huge support to the Irish team.
“The crowd were amazing, I wish we could have put on a better performance for them. They have been brilliant for the last two games and we were disappointing today, we probably didn't match them and hopefully we can do that next week.”
