Italy have been regular visitors to Ireland since they first met back in 1988 and in fact, the Azzurri won three of the first four games.
It was partly down to that hot streak, which included home and away victories over Ireland in 1997, and wins against France and Scotland that propelled them into the newly formatted championship in 2000.
Prior to their addition, the five-team tournament always meant that one team would have the weekend off and in 1998 they lost a friendly in Wales by just three points. They could no longer be ignored.
Diego Dominguez and co started off life in the Six Nations with a famous win over reigning champions Scotland but subsequently had to wait until 2003 for another victory, against Wales.
While they had Ireland's number before joining the competition, their record in this fixture has been abysmal, winning just once in Rome in 2013 against an Ireland team coming to the end of the road under Declan Kidney.
In addition to the 26 Six Nations clashes, Ireland have faced Italy in two World Cups, five World Cup warm-ups and an autumn international in Chicago in 2016.
It's been a familiar tale of woe for the Italians.
But there's been an upswing in fortunes under Argentinian Gonzalo Quesada (above), who took over in 2024.
They have won two and drawn one of their last eight away games in the championship and that's the same number of away wins and draws as they had across their previous 57 matches on the road.
Their recent Six Nations record in Dublin and the big scorelines from those games suggests the teams that rocked up to Lansdowne Road never truly believed that they could cause an upset, with minds elsewhere as they targeted games against Scotland, Wales and even France.
From 2024 back to 2016, the visitors have been hammered 36-0, 57-6, 50-17, 56-19 and 58-15 coming here, with most of that run covering their shocking 36-game losing streak that led to 'relegation' talk.
Still, that formline in Ireland means that the bookmakers are offering a 16-point spread in the host's favour. Andy Farrell would take that no questions asked.
However, despite the absences of Ange Capuozzo (injured) and Nacho Brex (personal reasons), the Italians will believe that they can cause a huge upset, especially on the back of a hard-fought win over Scotland last week and Ireland's current trajectory, which has seen them well beaten in their last two matches, against South Africa and France.
"You look at how they dealt with Scotland in really tricky conditions," said Ireland back row Jack Conan, who played at 6 in last season's narrow 22-17 victory in Rome.
"So, their set piece has come on long way. Lineout D, I think, has been really good. They went after Scotland really well in the air.
"Their scrum was fantastic. They got a few penalties against South Africa in November, which is something that we didn't manage to do. So it's going to be proper test and a real challenge for us."
There have been just a handful occasions when Italy have put it up to Ireland since they joined the championship.
The first of those close encounters came in a World Cup warm-up game in Belfast in 2007 when Eddie O'Sullivan's Ireland needed a controversial late try from Ronan O'Gara to win 23-20, a result that, in hindsight, was not out of sync with the disastrous World Cup campaign that followed a few weeks later.
Andrew Trimble scored a try for Ireland in the first half but they trailed 13-11 at the break with Alessandro Troncon's try and six points from David Bortolussi edging Italy ahead.
O'Gara, who ended with 18 points, kicked a penalty and a dropgoal to put Ireland in front but Matteo Pratichetti's injury-time try looked to be the winning score until O'Gara, with help from referee Nigel Owens and TMO Derek Bevan, crossed nine minutes into overtime.
The next near miss came in the following year when Ireland, playing their first game since the World Cup, were using Croke Park as Aviva Stadium was being build and scraped past Italy 16-11 in front of 75,387 paying customers.
O'Gara kicked 11 points, three penalties and a conversion after Girvan Dempsey's 18th-minute try, while Martin Castrogiovanni scored Italy's try and out-half David Bortolussi landed two penalties.
Ireland had to survive a second-half yellow card for Simon Easterby but it was an unconvincing start to a championship that ended with defeats to France, Wales and England and the end of O'Sullivan's reign.
The Munster out-half came to the rescue again in 2011 in Rome, another first-round encounter when Ireland, under Kidney, almost got caught cold.
A commenter on the BBC website opined: "Don't dress it up - it was dire - utterly dire. I have seen fewer slip ups on You've been Framed".
Two Mirco Bergamasco penalties had Italy 6-3 up at half-time with Johnny Sexton's penalty Ireland's only response.
Brian O'Driscoll scored at the start of the second half with Sexton's conversion extending the lead.
However, with Denis Leamy in the sin-bin, Luke McLean scored in the corner five minutes from time but replacement O'Gara held his nerve with a well-struck dropgoal to win the game.
It was another mixed campaign for Ireland who suffered defeats to Wales and France to finish in third place.
Then followed two handsome victories for Ireland, at the World Cup and in the championship back in Dublin before Italy recorded their solitary Six Nations win over Ireland.
It was a mess of a match where Brian O'Driscoll was yellow-carded and flanker Peter O'Mahony found himself playing on the wing. In a three-minute spell in the first half, Ireland lost Keith Earls, Luke Marshall and Luke Fitzgerald to injury.
Wayne Barnes also sent Donnacha Ryan and Conor Murray to the bin in the second half. Paddy Jackson, who deputised for Sexton after the Leinster man suffered an injury in training, kicked five penalties.
Giovanbattista Venditti scored the only try of the game in the 49th minute, Luciano Orqerea kicked the conversion and three penalties and Gonzalo Garcia also landed a penalty to give the hosts a memorable 22-15 victory in what was Kidney's last match in charge.
Away from the Six Nations, Ireland were also put to the pin of their collar when the teams met at the 2015 World Cup at the Olympic Stadium in London.
Parisse was in inspired from and the Azzurri trailed Joe Schmidt's men 10-6 at the break with Earls scoring the try and Sexton kicking five points.
Tommaso Allan landed three penalties for Italy who were denied a share of the spoils thanks in part to a try-saving tackle by O'Mahony, later sin-binned, on Josh Furno.
Ireland finished top of their pool thanks to the following week's famous win over France in Cardiff but a familiar fate was in store in the quarter-final against Argentina.
64' TRY! Italy 17-22 Ireland
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 15, 2025
Italy aren't done yet!
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And it was last year that Ireland really got out of jail in round five as their title defence fizzled out.
Monty Ioane opened the scoring but the Italian winger's try was cancelled out when Hugo Keenan raced over after 24 minutes for a touchdown converted by Jack Crowley, who missed three subsequent conversion attempts.
Allan landed a penalty but Dan Sheehan scored a hat-trick between the 39th and 58th minute as Italy's poor discipline saw them lose Michele Lamaro to a yellow and Ross Vintcent and Giacomo Nicotera to second-half red cards.
Stephen Varney's try made it a nervy ending for the visitors, who held on for a 22-17 success.
"The overriding feeling is that Ireland didn't go and win that game, that Italy sorted of handed it to them on a plate in the second half," was pundit Stephen Ferris' reaction.
Italy can justifiably feel it was one that got away and it's another piece of hard evidence that today's game threatens to be one of Ireland's most difficult assignments.
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