Ireland looked "rudderless" in their Guinness Six Nations defeat to Italy and missed the experience of Edel McMahon and Hannah O'Connor, according to Lindsay Peat.
Scott Bemand's side raced into an early lead with a penalty try in the seventh minute but handling errors and turnovers meant that they then went 54 minutes without scoring as Italy ran out 27-21 winners.
Flanker McMahon, a co-captain, and lock O'Connor were left out of the match-day squad but Bemand was able to welcome back co-captain Sam Monaghan, who missed the opening round loss to France.
Exeter Chiefs forward McMahon has 25 caps, while Leinster's O'Connor has 20 and had worked her way from a 'training panellist' prior to the tournament to a starter against Le Bleues.
"We started off so brightly in the first 20 minutes and then the swing in momentum [came] and I think that's the reflection of a young team and I would question ousting the experience of Edel McMahon and Hannah O'Connor," former prop Peat told RTÉ Sport.
"Hindsight is a great thing...but I just thought we looked rudderless at a time we needed composure.
"Italy are chaotic and we needed to stay disciplined and go through our phases and when we put stuff together we got return for it but we'd 25 handling errors, you are never going to win an international Test match with those mistakes.
"We were drifting, we were just making it easy for the Italian defence."
Ireland 21-27 Italy
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 31, 2024
Lindsay Peat feels Ireland would have been flattered to get away with a win against Italy and feels a lack of experience in the team selection cost the hosts#GuinnessW6N pic.twitter.com/TXWMt0JIAR
Peat, who won 38 international caps for Ireland between 2015 and 2021, also felt the hosts were missing leaders who could identify space and take initiative during the game, which attracted a record 6,605 attendance to the RDS.
She said: "It's everyone's job to scan but the flipside is who is confident enough to say, 'lads, we have to exploit the blind?', that's a call in the game and that's down to experience, to be able to see that.
"So, to me, that 's a really talented youthful team who was just going through exactly what game plan they were told to execute.
"Now we have to step up to the next level: how do you make decisions based on what you see on front of you and we didn't do that, that was the difference between Italy and Ireland today.
"They [Italy] were able to handle the pressure much better."
Former Ireland out-half Hannah Tyrrell agreed that Ireland didn't give Italy enough problems in attack.
"They were more ruthless," she said.
"We probably dominated possession in the first half yet we came out losing at half time.
"Collectively, I don't think we threatened the Italian defence enough, our shape was poor, we didn't have a lot of deception or options in attack and we made it really easy, drifting from side to side."
Ireland next face Wales, who were beaten by Scotland and England, at Musgrave Park on Saturday week.
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