Two countries who excelled themselves this time last year in the RBS Six Nations Championship only to fall from grace at the World Cup meet today at Croke Park seeking redemption. Italy were a kick away from the quarter-finals, but Ireland’s collapse was the most spectacular, with a rueful Brian O’Driscoll admitting this week that perhaps the players had got ahead of themselves before having achieved anything to justify bold assertions that they could win the tournament.
In the circumstances, bullish grand-slam hopes - justifiably made and only narrowly unfulfilled – 12 months ago are no longer on the agenda. It is a time for humility, with the focus merely on reproducing the type of performance that dismantled England in Dublin last season. “We’re under a different sort of pressure heading into the Six Nations,” O’Driscoll said. “It’s not the pressure of being expected to win, more just a pressure of improving on the World Cup.”
Indeed, that may prove to be a good thing. There are some class acts in the Ireland team, many of whom are looking forward to the chance to redeem themselves and their country’s reputation.
Italy provide the perfect opposition, a team in transition with acknowledged forward strengths and talent in the threequarters but nothing much to bring the two parts together. Nick Mallett, the new head coach, has gambled on an untried half-back pairing by moving Andrea Masi inside to fly half to partner Pietro Travagli.
However pessimistic the 76,000 crowd today may feel, it is impossible to look beyond a comprehensive win for Ireland to justify Eddie O’Sullivan’s belief that the World Cup was a blip rather than a symptom of a greater malaise. To achieve this it is important they do not try to push the game, they must be patient and smart.
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O’Sullivan has been doing a good job of keeping calm as the storm has raged around him, but he can be rattled and he knows that critics are waiting to pounce if things go wrong again.
It may prove to be the case that O’Sullivan merely got the preparations wrong for the World Cup and that four months into a new season, the demands of the Heineken Cup have honed his players and rekindled their appetite. O’Driscoll will hope so as the clock ticks down on his career. “I’m starting to take the defeats a little bit more personally the older I’m getting,” the captain, 29, who wins his 80th cap today, said.
Ireland: G Dempsey (Leinster); A Trimble (Ulster), B O’Driscoll (Leinster, captain), G D’Arcy (Leinster), G Murphy (Leicester); R O’Gara (Munster), E Reddan (London Wasps); M Horan (Munster), R Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster), D O’Callaghan (Munster), M O’Kelly (Leinster), S Easterby (Llanelli Scarlets), D Wallace (Munster), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: B Jackman (Leinster), T Buckley (Munster), M O’Driscoll (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster), P Stringer (Munster), P Wallace (Ulster), R Kearney (Leinster).
Italy: D Bortolussi (Montpellier); K Robertson (Viadana), G Canale (Clermont Auvergne), Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Français), P Canavosio (Castres); A Masi (Biarritz), P Travagli (Overmach Parma); A Lo Cicero (Racing-Metro), L Ghiraldini (Calvisano), M Castrogiovanni (Leicester), S Dellape (Biarritz), C A Del Fava (Ulster), J Sole (Viadana), Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Français), S Parisse (Stade Français, captain). Replacements: C Festuccia (Racing-Metro), S Perugini (Toulouse), C Nieto (Gloucester), T Reato (Rovigo), A Zanni (Calvisano), A Marcato (Treviso), E Galon (Overmach Parma).
Referee: J Kaplan (South Africa).
Television: Live on BBC One from 1pm (kick-off 2pm).