In years gone by, analysing a win against Italy has been a hollow task.
Win by a landslide, as Ireland did in 2022 and 2021 and 2020, and the general consensus would be that we learned nothing. Win by too little, as they did in 2019, and the alarms sound, and rightly so. It was lose-lose, even when they won.
Saturday's 34-20 win against the Azzurri in Rome was far from perfect, but at the very least there’s a lot for Andy Farrell to unpack, both positively and negatively.
Kieran Crowley’s current Italian team seem to play without any short-term memory, with neither the scoreline nor the talent opposite them spooking them. The New Zealander said his side were "gutted" they couldn’t pull off what would have been one of the great Six Nations upsets, only they probably wouldn’t have seen it as such.
In moments when they would have previously rolled over, and on Saturday there were plenty of them, they came back again and again. From going seven years without a win in the championship until last year’s victory in Cardiff, there’s every chance they will welcome Wales to Rome in a fortnight and be genuine favourites.
Pierre Bruno’s try with the final act of the opening half flipped the game on its head. With an attacking lineout in Italian territory, Ireland were going all out for one more score to cap off the half. Had Bundee Aki picked the right pass as he sought to find Ross Byrne’s looping run around the corner, it could have been a 31-10 half time lead, rather than 24-17. Small margins.
Those small margin moments that could have made it a very different game entirely. James Lowe lost control of the ball over the line in the opening minute – although they made amends with a try shortly after, Mack Hansen spilled in the 22 when he had nothing but green grass between himself and the tryline, while Bundee Aki came within a greasy finger of scoring Ireland’s fifth try on the hour mark, which would have made things far more comfortable.
"We played against a bloody good side today, we've known and you guys have known that for a good while now," Andy Farrell said afterwards, neatly summing up an entertaining 80 minutes.
"That was a proper Test match."
It was a strange day for Aki in particular, whose individual performance probably summed up the team as a whole. There were spectacular moments in attack; two offloads in the first couple of minutes setting up the James Lowe try that wasn’t, and the James Ryan try that was. He had a significant hand in the three first-quarter tries that put Ireland on their way to victory, in particular the one he scored.
However, he will be frustrated, not only by the intercept pass and knock-on close to the line, but with how he slipped off the tackle of Lorenzo Cannone in the lead-up to the first Italian try.
It was a first major Test outing for Aki and McCloskey as a combination, and while they looked relatively comfortable working together in attack, their lack of experience was exposed badly in defence. Both players made their case for the 12 jersey in Murrayfield next month, but having Garry Ringrose in the 13 shirt will be crucial.
"Stu and Bundee, individually, made some good inroads. It’s a new partnership coming together with a new half-back partnership. It’s always going to be tested under pressure when you are playing against a good side like that.
"But I thought they came through the game pretty well all-in-all. I thought we missed one or two chances that we need to review and realise, so there’s always room for improvement there," the head coach added.
Among the big positives was the composure when things started to get tense. For the third game in a row, Farrell’s bench made a largely positive impact.
Ryan Baird forced two turnovers, one of which allowed Ross Byrne extend Ireland’s lead with 15 minutes to play, and keep Italy at arm’s length, before a lovely inside pass to Caelan Doris set up the platform for the fifth and final try which made sure of the win.
That final try was finished off by Hansen after another replacement, Conor Murray, made the decisive break, taking advantage of tired legs, while Tom O’Toole produced another impressive substitute appearance when entering late in the first half after Finlay Bealham suffered a knee injury.
Bealham’s injury will be one of the major worries heading into the Scotland game, although Farrell is confident he’ll have Tadhg Furlong, as well as Johnny Sexton, Garry Ringrose and Jamison Gibson-Park all available for selection for the trip to Murrayfield in just under two weeks.
He’ll be glad to have those key players, even if Ireland have shown they might not rely on them as much as they once did.
