Women’s Six Nations Championship: Ireland V Italy – The Irish Examiner – February 12 2018

Griggs: We’ve turned a corner in how we play

Women’s 6 Nations

Ireland 21

Italy 8

Daire Walsh

Donnybrook

Adam Griggs believes Ireland turned a significant corner at Donnybrook Stadium yesterday, when a brace of second half tries from skipper Ciara Griffin helped them to defeat Italy in the Women’s Six Nations Championship.

“In patches there we put some pressure on the Italians. It was just a case of one more pass sticking and you never know,” the New Zealander acknowledged afterwards.

“I think the biggest thing is we’ve turned a corner in the way we want to play. We didn’t fall back into old habits. We always said that it was about the performance, but then the performance can take care of the result.”

However, Griggs’ first win as interim head coach did come at a cost, as a compound ankle fracture forced Alison Miller out of the action with just under four minutes gone on the clock.

They continued to push forward in her absence, though, and Megan Williams crossed over at the end of a prolonged 10th-minute attack.

A Niamh Briggs conversion extended Ireland’s advantage, but thanks to a routine penalty from centre Michela Sillari, the physically-imposing visitors were just four points in arrears (7-3) at the interval.

Yet, with player of the match Claire Molloy driving them forward, Ireland were determined to make up for an opening round loss to France. A series of handling errors kept the Italians within touching distance, before Griffin finally provided some breathing space with a close-range finish on 67 minutes.

The Kerry native was then on hand to touch down at the back of a five-metre scrum to place the outcome beyond doubt.

There was still time for the Irish line to breached by Italian loosehead prop Eleonora Ricci in stoppage-time, and with two weeks to go until they host Wales in Donnybrook, Griggs acknowledged there are aspects of their play they will need to work on.

“There’s certainly some sore bodies there from the last two weeks’ games. It’ll be nice for us now. We go back into training camp next weekend and we’ll be able to look at the video and right some of the wrongs that we probably did today as well,” Griggs added.

Scorers for Ireland: C Griffin 2 tries each, M Williams try, N Briggs 3 cons.

Scorers for Italy: E Ricci try, M Sillari pen.

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: C McLaughlin for Miller (4), M Claffey for Naoupu (18-26), L Lyons for Reidy, N Cronin for Hughes (both 50), C O’Connor for Moloney (61), Claffey for Briggs (77), L Feely for Peat, E McMahon for Caplice (both 80).

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: G Franco for Ruzza (26), A Muzzo for Busato (68).

Referee: T Baker (Hong Kong).

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