Ireland Bid Farewell To Legends As Italy Narrowly Beaten

It was a last game in green for Peter O’ Mahony and Conor Murray and both players got a deserved ovation when they took to the pitch. The match proved to be as tough a task as expected with Italy in no mood to give the Irish players a happy send off.

Speaking after the match Simon Easterby said, “Credit to Italy, they’re a good team. They have obviously been disappointed, certainly with the French result here and the performance in particular.

They showed that when they are physical and they’re given a chance to be, and the side they’re playing isn’t as accurate as it needs to be, then they can play as well as anyone.

It’s disappointing that we didn’t play at our best. A little bit of frustration. The five points was the priority, but we left a few scores out there as well.

I feel we’ve moved forward in some areas, in other areas we haven’t. But I think that’s probably the mark of the team, we’ve won four out of five and we’ll still feel like we can get better in lots of areas.