news by country
BOD happy with Italian job
Lineout problems for Italy - Mallett
Ireland captain and centre Brian O'Driscoll said it was a 'good workout' after his side made a winning, if stuttering, start to the defence of their Six Nations crown against Italy.
Jamie Heaslip and Tomas O'Leary scored first-half tries as O'Driscoll's men established a 23-3 lead, but they failed to press home their advantage in a disappointing second half that ended at 29-11 at Croke Park.
O'Driscoll admitted his side were "rusty" after only coming together late and will need a major improvement when they take on France in Paris next Saturday.
"I think it was a good workout," he said.
"It's not easy to click immediately having only been together for two weeks and not having played together since November.
"There is plenty to improve on. It's the first one and job done. We'll take the positives out of it and move on.
"We showed an ability in the first half to turn defence into attack and the amount of line-out ball we won was a big plus.
"We made some good line breaks but didn't finish them off. Maybe we need to improve our support play."
Prolific fly-half Ronan O'Gara, recalled in place of the injured Jonathan Sexton, opened the scoring on nine minutes with the first of six goals from as many attempts to become the first player to score 500 points in the championship.
When Heaslip and O'Leary scored tries before half-time the champions looked set to run away with it, but tigerish Italian defence kept them tryless after the break.
"We definitely know we have a lot of things to do but we took a conscious decision not to come together until late," said coach Declan Kidney.
"There was a small bit of rustiness. We're delighted with the win. If you look at it compared to last year's game, there is not a lot of difference.
"We were trying things in the second half but we didn't manage to get any pace into the game."
O'Gara came off fifteen minutes from the end after taking a knock to his knee but Kidney expects him to be fit to face France and he has not ruled out flanker Stephen Ferris, Donncha O'Callaghan and Sexton returning for the trip to Paris.
Italy, favourites to collect a third successive wooden spoon, scored their only try just before half-time through a charge down by Kaine Robertson, despite being down to 14 men with the sin-binning of centre Gonzalo Garcia for a dangerous tackle.
They lost the second half only 6-3 and coach Nick Mallett was delighted with his side's rearguard effort.
"At 23-8 at half-time there was a real possibility we could have conceded a lot more tries, especially with the ball Ireland had in the second half," he said.
"But the fact we didn't was down to some fantastic defence and it's something I'm really proud of.
"Ireland are a very good side. They're very pragmatic and have got a very good set of backs, probably the best backline in Europe. It was our job not to give them ball.
"They played very well in the first half and took their opportunities. They were trying to score tries in the second half but I'm very proud of the way our guys defended."
Mallett said he would be looking to improve his side's line-out after they lost possession from seven of their own throws and stole just one Ireland line-out.
"That was the biggest disappointment," he said.
"There was a variety of reasons - some were poor calls - but it's very tough to be competitive if you lose 50 per cent of your line-out.
"It's not something that's been a problem for me but it's an area we're going to have to look at."
