Ireland v Italy: MOMENTUM, momentum, momentum. In the noughty 90s, Ireland lost all 10 of their opening Five Nations games and we all know what happened after that. Not a lot. In the relatively bountiful Noughties, however, Ireland won eight of their 10 openers, were top three contenders all but once and finally reached the golden generation’s Holy Grail last March.
Ireland thus kick-off their first defence of the championship since 1986 (when they were whitewashed) looking for the Big Mo. History is weighed against them repeating last year’s Slam, but that’s more to do with the next two games in Paris and London.
Unbeaten in 13 Tests, this looks like a routine opening defence of their crown on what is also a day of landmarks. John Hayes will play in his 50th successive RBS Six Nations game (his 49 is already a record) since making his debut in round two against the Scots in 2000, and thereby join an exclusive 50-cap club in the championship, along with Mike Gibson (56), Jason Leonard (54), Willie John McBride (53), Philippe Sella (50) and Rory Underwood (50).
The equally phenomenal and durable Ronan O’Gara, who made his Ireland debut the same day, will start his seventh successive campaign and 31st consecutive match on a record 499 points for the championship.
Save for the trend against the Scots, nothing illustrates the transformation in Irish rugby since around the turn of the millennium more than the results against the Italians. Time was, until 1999, when Ireland had a losing record (1-3) against the Azzuri, but they have won the countries’ last 13 meetings, and it assuredly helped that in four of those aforementioned eight opening wins, the opposition was Italy.
The Italians are also missing the truly brilliant Sergio Parisse – their captain, talisman, inspiration, auxiliary fullback, main lineout man and go-to ball carrier (he possibly drives the bus and cooks the pasta too). Italy may not be quite a one-man team, but in recent years they’ve looked closer to one than any other frontline Test side around.
Yet, on closer examination, the Azzurri may not roll over and have their bellies tickled. Those last three opening-day wins have been by five, 10 and 11 points. Indeed, whereas it’s often been a romp in the Roman sun at the Stadio Flaminio (Ireland’s winning margin in their last five visits is 22.5), on home soil it’s often been a comparative grind lately, with Ireland’s winning margin over the last four being 8.5.
The Italians tend not to open up as much away form home, and the presence of Monsieur Romain Poite for his first Six Nations game is undoubtedly unnerving. Paul O’Connell, for one, will assuredly be keeping his counsel, and nor might Brian O’Driscoll be of a mind to engage the French official as much as O’Connell did in Munster’s win over Northampton.
Poite’s attitude toward the breakdown is fairly classical of the Top 14, where carnage more often that not reigns as the bodies pile up. He has also shown a clear tendency to favour the stronger scrum, not least when Munster struggled against Northampton, and Treviso also gave Munster problems there.
Even so, Gert Smal has vowed that Ireland have been putting in the hours there and similar fears were expressed before last season’s Heineken Cup final, only for Cian Healy to stand up to Martin Castrogiovanni for an hour, see him off and then stood up to Julien White.
While the Italians’ strengths look familiar, and their halves have an unknown quantity, Declan Kidney admitted that with lesser preparation time “99.9 per cent of our concentration has been on what we want to try and do” adding: “If you over-focus on the opposition – I would say, hands up, that was a mistake I made in the New Zealand match last November 12 months – we won’t be doing that again, we’ll be concentrating on our own stuff.”
Ireland could take a leaf out of the Munster manual and go wide early on to their strike runners (Keith Earls and Paul Warwick) as they did away to Treviso three weeks ago, scoring three tries in the first 10 minutes. Admittedly, it will be a surprise if the Azzurri defence is as naïve as Treviso’s which made the opening skirmishes look like a sevens game.
Furthermore, Ireland have deliberately sacrificed some of the progress made last year. Having crammed like students facing their finals prior to last year’s Six Nations in fine-tuning a new gameplan, this year the post-Lions’ run-in to a hectic autumn schedule resulted in the Irish management scrapping their pre-Chistmas get-together for more rest.
“Only having had a fortnight together we’ve tried to gel as much as we can,” said O’Driscoll yesterday, when also curtly dismissing rumours regarding his own fitness, “and we’re not expecting fireworks from minute one and trying our most elaborate of plays and work our way into the game and give Italy the respect they deserve and try and grind them down like we would any other side.
“Test rugby these days is very different to a few years ago. You don’t beat any side in the world in the first 20 minutes. You have to grind teams down for 60, 70, 80 minutes. The difference between winning and losing, and wearing teams down, can be marginal and we’re treating this game in the exact same way as any other.”
All signs are that it will be an arm wrestle for a half or more, and that Ireland will first roll up their sleeves and get down and dirty with the Azzurri before eventually showing their much sharper cutting edge.