from Simon Lewis in Rome
THERE was relief rather than joy in the Ireland camp following a nail-biting 13-11 win over Italy in Rome this evening.
At the end of a game marked by extremely sloppy play by the Irish, Ronan O'Gara came off the bench to slot over a 78th minute drop goal three minutes after a Luke McLean try had given the Italians hope of securing a first ever Six Nations victory over the Irish, who had seen Denis Leamy sin-binned with seven minutes to go.
Italy pressed for a last-gasp winner in front of a packed house of 32,000 at Stadio Flaminio but substitute fly-half Luciano Orquera left his drop-goal effort short of the posts from around 35 metres out and the despair belonged to the Azzurri as Luke Fitzgerald caught the ball and belted it into the crowd to end the game.
Brian O'Driscoll, whose try early in the second half overturned a 6-3 Italian lead at half time, had said on the eve of the match that it was “inevitable” that Italy would beat Ireland at some stage and was almost proved immediately right.
“The game's not over until it's over and as long as you still have the ability with four minutes to go and create something, you're still in the game," the Ireland skipper said during the post-match press conference. “When I said that about Italy winning eventually, it's the same as the likes of ourselves saying that one day we'll beat the All Blacks because we haven't done that yet.
“I'm sure the law of averages say that when teams play that often they'll eventually beat one another. It was very close today and we were fortunate to a degree to be able to come out of it.
“When you're down with four minutes to go of course you think there's every chance you'll lose the game."
O'Driscoll had been guilty along with his team-mates of making crucial passing and handling errors as Ireland squandered a myriad of chances for tries.
“We created a huge number of opportunities, it's just we lacked the clinical edge and that was the frustrating thing,” he said. “Our shape was excellent at times, we threatened an awful lot and created those opportunities but through bad handling and bad passing we let Italy off the hook.
"We shouldn't have been in the situation we were in with five minutes to go. It comes down to individual responsibility and hopefully that's an easy fix.
"The guys will have to look at the video, which won't be a thing of beauty.”
Ireland coach Declan Kidney could hardly disagree with his captain, adding: "We have a game under our belts here. We were far from the finished article out there and we know we have a lot of work to do to become more clinical.”
Kidney also said that Jamie Heaslip, who missed the game with a knee injury, could make a return to the squad for next Sunday's second game of the championship, at home to defending Grand Slam winners France.
Heaslip was one of 10 players absent through injury and Kidney said: “The good news is I don’t think we lost anyone today. Jamie was not looking too bad towards end of last week. Andrew Trimble is seeing a specialist next week, and Stephen (Ferris) is having another run Monday so we'll see how pulls up.”
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/UPKt1Bb8PKU/post.aspx
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