The smile may take a little while to disappear but for Ireland's three try hero Rob Henderson, the priority in evaluating his contribution at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome was not to gloss over mistakes.

He could have been forgiven, for three try cameos are not that prevalent for Irish backs - Brian O'Driscoll hat-trick in Paris aside - but instead he looked to steer conversation towards team issues.

It wasn't about answering critics, he did not consider it a personal or public vindication of his ability: instead he preferred to dwell on the importance of winning the match. "If you look at the whole game as a single entity, I have scored three tries but still made a couple of mistakes. I think we all made mistakes.

"I made a couple of crucial errors one of which led to a try, you have to take that into the context of my game. As for answering critics I wouldn't know. The critics can decide."

So how does it feel to score three tries in an international? "I don't score many tries. To score one was a bonus, to score three, a dream. Like a good wine, I think I am maturing with age. I scored none in the first 16 and five in the last four, so who knows what's going to happen.

"I'm not taking anything for granted because of this. There's a lot of competition for places in the team, a lot of strength in depth. Players are becoming available again, so we just have to wait and see what happens when the next team is selected.

"Obviously it is a special day because it is the first time that we have played Italy in the Six Nations away and it's the first time we have won on Italian soil. We wanted to get off to a winning start; we have not won our first match in the championship since '88 and that was the priority. It didn't matter whether we won by a point or 20 points."

Despite his assertion that he doesn't score many tries, it is the second time this season that Henderson has grabbed a hat-trick, the other occasion a club game. "The previous hat-trick was playing at flyhalf for Wasps against Gloucester this season. The last time I did it playing centre was for Wasps against Bedford at Loftus Road last year."

When asked what he considered his best try on Saturday Henderson had little hesitation. "The first (try) was definitely the favourite because I broke a tackle and showed a bit of speed as well." When asked whether he considered looking around for support, before electing to try and score himself, the Wasps centre laughed: "Once you break the first line, you are never looking for support, I don't know who told you that."

It is the second time that Henderson has enjoyed an excellent performance against the Italians but he neatly steered conversation back to a team perspective. "The team performance was a bit mediocre, myself included and we have got to pick it up another level for France in two weeks. I think it is partially down to the disruptions. We haven't really trained together a great deal. It was just a case of being mentally tough enough to come out and get the job done and we have done that. We have a lot more time to regroup, to train together and get organised and to take on the French.

"We knew they (Italy) were going to be strong and physical, throwing everything at us in the first 20 minutes. To be fair we let them into the game by not playing particularly smartly and there were a lot of errors in the first half. We were kicking quite a lot of ball away and (Christian) Stoica was just running it back and making good headway.

And with that Henderson was prevailed upon to join his colleagues on the team coach. There may have been no match ball but as Henderson conceded: "I'll always have the memory." Hopefully many more.