Gordon D’Arcy says there is room for improvement against France next weekend following an unconvincing start to Ireland’s Six Nations title defence, but insists "small changes" will "put things right".
The Grand Slam champions toiled to a 29-11 victory over wooden spoon favourites Italy after losing cohesion in an forgettable second half at Croke Park.
Tries from Jamie Heaslip and Tomás O’Leary, with Ronan O’Gara kicking 16 points, failed to gloss over a frustrating afternoon. Ireland’s championship continues against France in Paris next Saturday and D’Arcy insists his team-mates will be determined to address any shortcomings.
“My own opinion is that there is 20 or 30 per cent improvement to come from us. Everyone knows it,” said the Leinster centre. “That could be the sting in the back of our minds when we start training tomorrow.
“We’d have liked to have scored, five, six or seven tries. We were capable of doing that but we didn’t so from that point of view we are a little bit frustrated.
“It’s the media that sets the expectation and we’ll leave that to the bars and people talking about it in the stands.
“We just want to win the game. The strength of this team is that expectation is created by other people.
“We have our goals and standards. We didn’t live up to all of them against Italy but that’s for us to figure out.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, small changes will help put things right.
“We didn’t get much quick ball in their 22 and we let them escape the cosh a little bit too easily. That’s something we’ll look at.”
Ireland’s Six Nations may have spluttered into life, but D’Arcy believes the way the squad is managed still gives them an advantage over their rivals.
“The IRFU and provinces are fantastic at monitoring our workload — weights, training and time on the pitch,” he said. “That has definitely shown over the last year to 18 months from the provinces to the Ireland team itself.
“Last year we showed that by game four or five we were definitely fresher than other teams.”