Sinéad Kissane: Ireland fail to get ‘bang for buck’ after missed opportunity against Italy

Ireland fought hard for a fourth try in an exciting endgame but Italy were the deserving winners with a 21-27 victory for their first Women’s Six Nations win on Irish soil.

The cold fact is the defeat extends Ireland’s losing run in this competition to seven games and leaves them fifth in the table with the losing bonus point they left with yesterday.

​Regrets? Ireland will have more than a few. In direct contrast to the ruthless Italians who scored four tries, Ireland were not clinical enough with the possession they had especially in the opening 30 minutes when they had a player advantage for 10 minutes after Vittoria Ostuni Minuzzi was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on which gave Ireland a penalty try.

Ireland’s ambition with their attacking intent was undone by their handling errors, 27 in total. One that stood out was the skip pass by Enya Breen to Béibhinn Parsons in the second half which would have been a nailed-on try but the ball was knocked on. Nine times out of 10, the Ballinasloe winger – who made an electric start with her running and fending and rose the decibel levels of the record crowd every-time she got the ball in her hands – would have held onto the ball.

There were also some decision-making that let Ireland down and while the defence last week was a marked improvement on last year, conceding four tries to the impressive Italians will make for hard viewing in the video review sessions.

“I think the attack was shown a bit today, but we would have liked more clinical-ness,” head coach Scott Bemand said after the game. “More bang for our buck in their 22. Defensively we’ve done some very good bits again today but we’ve let them in a bit cheaply for me. There’s this constant mix of trying to focus on the right stuff but we always focus on both sides of the ball.

“It does feel like a missed opportunity but those are the experiences, those are the learnings that we've got to take. You look at how the girls started that game. They sort of got out of the blocks. Of course there’s bits in that game and there’s a few moments in every game where it can go one way or the other. I think we probably just had a few too many of those today, so yeah it does feel like a missed opportunity.”

After the penalty try in the seventh minute, Ireland didn’t score again until Neve Jones’s try after 62 minutes while winger Katie Corrigan ensured an exciting finish when she intercepted a pass to run in and score her first international try with two minutes left.

“Obviously we’re disappointed with the result but proud of the performance we showed. We didn’t give up the fight, right to the last second. We put ourselves in positions to score and unfortunately that’s the winning and losing of the game, isn’t it? If you take those opportunities, you’re on the other side,” said a rueful Enya Breen.

“When we got on top, we just couldn’t finish it out and unfortunately that happens but we’ll take the learnings from that. On another day those will stick, those tries are scored.”

The loss puts a huge dent in their hopes of finishing third in the table and getting that likely automatic qualification for next year’s Rugby World Cup in England. Their more realistic path lies in finishing fourth or fifth and automatically getting into WXV2 which is another route to qualifying.

Ireland have a down week this week with no game next weekend but a lot of work will need to be done on the training ground.

They face a fellow winless team next, Wales, in Cork on Saturday, April 13. The way an impressive Scotland are playing, this game against Wales – who Ireland haven’t beaten since 2021 – has grown even more in importance with the England game in Twickenham the following week followed by Scotland in Belfast on the final day.

“The story doesn’t finish here,” Bemand added. “We’ve got two more games back in Ireland and our challenge now is to learn faster than anybody else. So the group is positive. The group has had a bit of a setback today but it’s not the defining of the Six Nations.

“So I back our girls to come out, work hard, get looking forward to the next game, come and produce a performance that hopefully can convert into a winning performance.”