Rugby – Six Nations Italy 11 Ireland 13:A Ronan O'Gara drop goal three minutes from time spared Ireland's blushes and secured a narrow 13-11 win over Italy in their opening Six Nations match at Stadio Flaminio in Rome.
After Italy's Luke McLean went over for a try to put his side 11-10 ahead with just five minutes remaining, replacement outhalf O'Gara made no mistake from a central position following forward pressure by the 2009 Grand Slam winners.
Trailing 6-3 at halftime after Mirco Bergamasco's two penalties to Jonathan Sexton's solitary kick, captain Brian O'Driscoll sped through a gap to score the game's opening try just after the restart.
Sexton added the conversion though a series of handling errors almost cost Ireland, who have never lost to Italy since the Mediterranean nation entered the Six Nations in 2000.
O’Driscoll could not hide his relief after Ireland escaped after Italy looked as though they were about to pull off a shock win.
“The longer they stayed in the game the more of a threat they were going to be,” said O’Driscoll, who admitted they lacked the killer touch but was glad to have got off to a winning start despite a below-par performance.
“We didn’t kill them off and then we spilled the ball five metres out. You can’t have those sort of mistakes in Test rugby. You don’t get away with them.
“But it was a great result to be able to come back from that. We needed a drop goal in the last few minutes and we got it from Ronan.
“We made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes today. But you can have a substandard performance and lose and have a substandard performance and win. Fortunately for us we won today but there is a lot of work to be done.”
Scorers:
Italy:Try: Luke McLean; Penalties: Mirco Bergamasco (2)
Ireland:Try: Brian O'Driscoll; Penalty: Jonathan Sexton;
Conversion:Sexton; Drop goal: Ronan O'Gara
Yellow card: Denis Leamy
Teams:
Italy:15-Luke McLean, 14-Andrea Masi, 13-Gonzalo Canale, 12-Alberto Sgarbi (22-Gonzalo Garcia 69), 11-Mirco Bergamasco, 10-Kristopher Burton (21-Luciano Orquera 72), 9-Edoardo Gori (20-Pablo Canavosio 10); 8-Sergio Parisse (captain), 7-Alessandro Zanni, 6-Josh Sole (19-Valerio Bernabo 51), 5-Quintin Geldenhuys, 4-Santiago Dellape (18-Carlo Antonio Del Fava 55), 3-Martin Castrogiovanni, 2-Leonardo Ghiraldini (16-Fabio Ongaro 64), 1-Salvatore Perugini (17-Andrea Lo Cicero 36 - 1-Salvatore Perugini 40 – 17 Andrea Lo Cicero 64)
Ireland:15-Luke Fitzgerald, 14-Fergus McFadden, 13-Brian O'Driscoll (captain), 12-Gordon D'Arcy (22-Paddy Wallace 76), 11-Keith Earls, 10-Jonathan Sexton (21-Ronan O'Gara 66), 9-Tomas O'Leary (20-Eoin Reddan 64); 8-Sean O'Brien, 7-David Wallace, 6-Denis Leamy, 5-Paul O'Connell (18-Leo Cullen 73), 4-Donncha O'Callaghan, 3-Mike Ross, 2-Rory Best (16-Sean Cronin 76), 1-Cian Healy (17-Tom Court 76).
Replacement not used:19-Shane Jennings
Referee:Romain Poite (France)
