Embattled Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan has insisted that his players were not lacking in self-belief despite an eighth successive under-par performance in the narrow 16-11 win over Italy in their Six Nations opening clash.
The 49-year-old said that, looking forward to next Saturday's clash with titleholders France, there were many positives to take out of the win over the Italians which saw the Irish fail to make the most of several try-scoring opportunities.
'There are lots of positives from Saturday,' said O'Sullivan, who is under a lot of pressure to produce a top Six Nations campaign if he is to stay in the post after seven years in power.
'We scrummaged very well and made lots of linebreaks, though our lineout stuttered a bit.
'Funnily enough we were sloppiest when they were down to 14 men (the last 10 minutes of the first-half which saw the Italians score a penalty to reduce the score to 10-3).
'Okay it wasn't what we saw in Rome last year (51-24 to the Irish) but we just didn't click at times.
'But I would say yes there is belief among the players,’ added O'Sullivan, who in the last eight tests has scraped unimpressive wins over Italy twice, Namibia and Georgia and club side Bayonne while losing to the Scots, French and Argentineans.
O'Sullivan, whose popular predecessor as coach, Warren Gatland, notched up a fine victory in his first match in charge of Wales over England, admitted there were areas where the Irish would have to improve on, were they to cause France any problems - which is patently what they failed to do at their World Cup clash.
'We will have to tighten up the lineout' said O'Sullivan, who faces personally perhaps the crucial match of this campaign against Gatland and the Welsh on March 8 at Croke Park.
‘We will work on the scrum, though I think it has vastly improved over the past year-and-a-half.
‘We will do well to create half the linebreaks we did on Saturday and we will have to be more clinical in finishing them off.'
With centre Gordon D'Arcy definitely out with a broken forearm, O’Sullivan said that the choice of Brian O'Driscoll's partner would come down to either Ulster youngster Andrew Trimble, whose defensive weaknesses are more exposed when he plays on the wing, or veteran Shane Horgan.
'Shane needed a game under his belt after coming back from injury,’ said O'Sullivan, referring to Horgan's lining up for Ireland A against England A last Friday.
'I thought Andrew did well when he had to switch to the centre and that Rob Kearney made a good impression coming on to play on the wing.'
There will, however, still be no Paul O'Connell as he struggles to get back to full fitness from a back injury.
'He was making real progress a few weeks ago and then he put his back out,' said O'Sullivan, who must be staring nervously over his shoulder with live candidates such as former assistant and Munster coach Declan Kidney and South Africa's World Cup-winning handler Jake White available.
'It is one of those injuries where you make some progress and then you suffer a setback.
'I expect Paul to play half a game next weekend for the Munster A side and if he comes through that and then gets a full match under his belt then he will be back in contention for a place before the tournament is over.'
