Ireland target fast start against powerful Italians
Women’s Six Nations
Daire Walsh
Ireland hooker Cliodhna Moloney has stressed the importance of putting down an early marker in tomorrow’s Six Nations clash with Italy at Donnybrook (1pm, RTE Two).
The Italians lost 7-42 at home to England last weekend but the sides were level at the break.
With this mind, Moloney feels Ireland need to put their opponents to the sword as quickly as possible.
“They [Italy] held England for 40 minutes and they are very physical.
“We’d be hoping to try and put our marker down early and get the crowd behind us in Donnybrook,” Moloney said.
“We must try and get them broken down a lot earlier than England did. We don’t want it to be a tight contest for that long, as it was with England.”
While a significant change in personnel has heralded a transitional period for the Irish team, Moloney still acknowledged that they didn’t reach their required level of performance in Saturday’s comprehensive 24-0 reversal to France.
“With the new caps and the newer girls coming in, it does help with the feeling of moving forward, and we want to progress and we want to get the wins.
“When France away is your first game, it’s always going to be a tough encounter. But we didn’t perform as we would have liked, regardless of who it was so we do have a lot of stuff to work on from that.”
Moloney will be joined in an unchanged front-row tomorrow by Lindsay Peat and Fiona Reidy, as Adam Griggs searches for his first win as interim head coach.
The New Zealander is joined in the current set-up by Mike Ross, and Moloney believes the former Ireland International’s understanding of the scrum has been of great benefit to the squad.
“He’s got huge, huge knowledge and he’s got a great way about him in coaching us. He’s very simple and direct. Scrummaging is obviously a very technical thing, but you can over complicate it at times,” the Galway native explained.
“The best kind of motto that he’s given us is just we need to go forward. He’ll tell us the simplest and best ways for us to do that. He’s been very good for us.”
Italy coach Andrea Di Giandomenico said: “We know it will be a tough match – we will focus on our quality at the breakdown and the effectiveness of our attacking game, while increasing the defensive consistency. We are going to Dublin to improve our performance and we’re confident in the work we are doing.”
IRELAND: K Flood; M Williams, K Fitzhenry, S Naoupu, A Miller; N Briggs, A Hughes; L Peat, C Moloney, F Reidy; P Fitzpatrick, N Fryday; A Caplice, C Molloy, C Griffin.
Replacements: L Lyons, L Feely, C O’Connor, O Fitzsimons, E McMahon, N Cronin, M Claffey, C McLaughlin.
ITALY: M Furlan; S Stefan, M Sillari, B Rigoni, M Magatti; J Busato, S Barattin; E Ricci, M Bettoni, L Gai; V Ruzza, G Duca; B Veronese, I Locatelli, I Arrighetti.
Replacements: S Turani, G Durante, M Merlo, M Pagani, G Franco, A Corbucci, AM Gizzi, A Muzzo.