Caelan Doris admits Ireland will target a bonus-point win against Italy but won't allow complacency to creep into the team.
The 2023 and 2024 champions sit third in the Guinness Six Nations table but retain an outside chance of retaining their trophy should leaders France or second-place England slip up against Scotland and Wales, respectively.
Simon Easterby’s men will start Super Saturday off at Stadio Olimpico (2.15pm, live on RTÉ) against an Azzurri side who have lost three and won once, against Wales, this season.
Having failed to earn bonus points in the win over Wales and the 42-27 loss to France last weekend, Ireland can reach 19 points with a four-try victory and must then hope results go in their favour later on.
And despite having won 24 of 25 Six Nations meetings, Doris insists they can’t afford to take Italy lightly.
"I don’t think you can think about that [bonus point] too quickly given how Italy have gone," he said of Gonzalo Quesada’s side, who are in fifth following last weekend’s loss in Twickenham.
"They got a win over here against Wales, they showed quality, they showed quality in the first half against England last week, too.
"So we can’t take any result for granted but, of course, given the context and the bigger picture, we’ll be chasing a bonus point but the result is the most important thing.
ITALY v IRELAND: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
"[It’s] largely it’s about us. We respect Italy massively, and we respect their attack massively. It’s been very strong for the last number of years, what they can do with ball in hand.
"We’ve seen glimpses of that this year throughout this year and the last number of years.
"There’s that element but we want our best performance yet and [the] frustration off the back of last week, and the only way we can right that wrong is to put in a good strong performance."
Ireland came into last weekend with a perfect record but Grand Slam hopes were dashed in the most devastating fashion as the champions had no answer to France's second-half power surge.
It was Ireland’s heaviest home loss since the defeat to England in the 2019 Six Nations.
Captain Doris added: "It was a pretty big defeat, and it takes away our Grand Slam hopes and with any big defeat, any good team wants to learn and wants to have it as a growth in the long term.
'You take more responsibility and question different things' @caelan_doris on those few moments of regret as captain in the loss to France @SixNationsRugby @IrishRugby #rtesport pic.twitter.com/YrGUnXEyxW
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 14, 2025
"I hope that we can take lessons into this weekend but also long term in knowing we are not where we want to be consistently at all yet and there’s so much growth in us and we really need to chase that down."
On areas to improve on from last weekend, the Leinster number 8 said: "Our conversion [rate] in the 22 early on, we didn’t score points when we had five 22 entries.
"So that will be something we hope to get right tomorrow.
"Defensively, our contacts were a big talking point in the French week given their quality and size of men they have, we didn’t get that right.
"The commitment to the contact wasn’t good enough.
"Overall, from an energy and width point of view we’re going to need to be on it."
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Watch Italy v Ireland (from 1.15pm) and France v Scotland (from 7.30pm) in the Guinness Six Nations on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player this Saturday.
Follow a live blog of both games on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, and listen to live commentary of Italy v Ireland on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
