Who is playing and when?
Ireland return to Dublin to play their first home game of this year’s Six Nations. Italy are the visitors to the Aviva Stadium. Kick-off is at 3pm on Sunday, February 11th.
Can I watch?
You can of course. Virgin Media provides the free-to-air TV coverage.
RTÉ Radio 1 will also have live commentary, as will The Irish Times’ liveblog which gets under way two hours before kick-off.
What happened last week?
Do you live under a rock? Ireland went to Marseille as marginal underdogs and blew France away — granted, aided by a red card to Paul Willemse in a 17-38 victory.
Joe McCarthy was named player of the match on his first Six Nations debut, though Tadhg Beirne’s dominance of a number of statistical categories left him as unlucky to miss out on that prize. Jack Crowley had some moments of magic in his first game wearing number 10 after the retirement of Johnny Sexton, while the previously maligned lineout functioned perfectly.
Ireland’s pack provided excellent ruck ball while Jamison Gibson-Park took a lot of pressure off his young outhalf by managing the game brilliantly. James Lowe’s left boot was also a strong weapon as Ireland, unusually, outkicked their French counterparts.
As for Italy, they pushed England close in their first game in Rome. A late score for Monty Ioane narrowed the gap to 24-27 in favour of the visitors.
Under new coach Gonzalo Quesada, the former Argentinian outhalf, Italy impressed at times though they struggled to make a dent in England’s Felix Jones-coached defence throughout the second half.
Ireland's magic night in Marseille
This is an easy Ireland win, right?
It should be. At this stage, we’re all a bit tired of getting excited about Italy’s development before they proceed to let us down. They haven’t won in the Six Nations since beating Wales in 2022, while their World Cup was a disaster — most notably when they shipped 90+ points against the All Blacks.
Yet in Quesada, they have a new coach with an impressive CV who, given his extensive work in French rugby, knows this competition well.
Italy attack out wide more than any other team in the championship — they love to throw the ball around. They also have a good record when it comes to their proportion of carries that break the gainline. If Quesada can marry the two, adding a pragmatic touch while teaching this Italian side how to recognise when to go wide and when to use their decent forward carriers, they can be a threat.
Lest we forget, before their World Cup disaster, Italy caused Ireland problems in last year’s Six Nations when the eventual Grand Slam champions pulled away in the second half for a 20-34 win.
Despite all that, given Italy are still developing and the game is in Dublin, it would take a historic display from the visitors and a woeful performance from Ireland for Sunday to be particularly competitive.
Team news
Nothing yet out of the Ireland camp in terms of injuries following the France match. Given it is a rest week after Sunday, one would suspect Andy Farrell will avoid significant rotation given the importance of performing well at home.
The one definitive piece of injury news at this stage has come from Italy. Sebastian Negri, the hard-carrying backrow forward, suffered a “rib contusion” against England and will be unavailable to play in Dublin, the Azzurri have announced. Negri, of course, has become particularly well known to fans after his feature episode in the recent Netflix documentary Full Contact.
With Negri returning to Benetton to rehab, Zebre forward Matteo Canali has been called into the Italian squad, as has Benetton outhalf Leo Marin.
