Ireland v Italy reaction:Brian O'Driscoll preferred to focus on the positives in the wake of Ireland's flawed 29-11 win over Italy. The Irish captain insisted it was a "good workout ahead of the daunting trip to Paris next weekend.
O’Driscoll admitted his side were “rusty” after only coming together late and will need a major improvement when they take on France.
“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.”
Coach Declan Kidney said: “We definitely know we have a lot of things to do but we took a conscious decision not to come together until late. 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.”
Ronan O’Gara came off 15 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 Jonathan Sexton returning for the trip to Paris.
Italy 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.”