ITALY 12 IRELAND 54
BY RICHARD BULLICK
SIMPLY magnificent Ireland ran in eight tries as they ended their four-year wait for an away win in the Guinness Six Nations in stunning style with a record 54-12 thrashing of Italy in Parma, where a four-try bonus point was secured inside the first 25 minutes.
Inspired by a superb Player of the Match performance from the awesome Aoife Dalton, who powered over for their first score inside two minutes and never let up, insatiable Ireland added a further four tries in the second half as they built upon a 26-5 interval lead.
There wasn’t long left when Ulster’s Brittany Hogan barged over late on to take Ireland’s try-count to a magnificent seven, but still time enough for Scott Bemand’s glorious greens to finish with a flourish as they served up their Sunday best.
Veteran replacement prop Christy Haney offloaded deliciously in the lead-up to Dannah O’Brien putting winger Anna McGann away down the right to complete her hat-trick with the clock red, and the outhalf landed her seventh conversion with the last kick of the game.
It was the perfect riposte from the young Carlow woman, who had missed all three conversions in Ireland’s opening game against France the previous weekend, but O’Brien’s normally reliable left boot brought her a 14-point haul here.
Hogan and Dorothy Wall, both such stalwarts of the Irish starting pack throughout the Bemand era, predictably responded to being benched for this Italian job with absolutely thunderous displays which brought both of them tries.
After holding champions and hot favourites for yet another title, England, scoreless for most of the second half in York the previous Sunday on their way to a respectable 38-5 loss, Italy had their sights set on completing a hat-trick of triumphs over Ireland.
The Italians had recorded a well-deserved victory in Dublin last Easter Sunday after defeating the girls in green on their most recent visit to Parma, a place which has held unhappy memories for Irish women’s rugby.
It was there that Ireland failed to qualify for the last World Cup courtesy of defeats against Spain and Scotland in the autumn of 2023, but now the Italian city has become the latest staging post on the journey of an ambitious team travelling in the right direction.
One measure of how far Ireland have come in a short time was the sense of frustration after the opening day defeat at Ravenhill, where the 27-15 scoreline undoubtedly flattered France on a day when both teams registered three tries.
It was an impressive performance in many ways against the French, who had put 50 points on Ireland on their previous visit, but hopes of claiming another significant scalp were undermined by too many handling errors as well as those missed kicks at goal.
Ireland had gone 14-0 down in the first quarter in Belfast but the boot was on the other foot in Parma where Bemand’s side scored two converted tries inside the opening eight minutes to lay the foundations for what would go on to be an exceptionally comprehensive victory.
The Ireland lineout was one emphatic positive from the French clash, with only one lost out of 19, and it delivered a similar return here at the end of a week in which several players had heaped praise on the work in this area of forwards coach Alex Codling.
Over the past year, a 21-year-old called Aoife has usually been the focal point of good days for Ireland, with Wafer picking up the Player of the Match awards for her role in the memorable wins against Wales, Australia and New Zealand.
And it was a 21-year-old called Aoife who won Player of the Match here too but this time it was compact centre Dalton on an afternoon when Wafer, who actually turned 22 last Tuesday, had a try disallowed and had the luxury of putting her feet up for the last half hour.
The fact Bemand was confident enough to take Ireland’s taliswoman off with so long left spoke volumes not only about how much control his team were in but also the quality on a bench which again had a 6:2 split.
Bemand had kept the same matchday 23 that were on duty against France but made three changes to the run-on line-up with captain Edel McMahon coming into the back row, Aoibheann Reilly reclaiming the No 9 jersey and Ulster lock Fiona Tuite also starting.
Hogan had started Bemand’s first 12 Tests in charge at No 8 before switching to blindside flanker for the French game and it was the Killinchy woman who made way for McMahon in a unit completed by Wafer and World Breakthrough Player of the Year Erin King.
Just back from a cruciate rupture, Reilly’s return at the base of the scrum was unsurprising given her impressive performances in last spring’s Six Nations, but Tuite’s inclusion alongside the inexperienced Ruth Campbell in the engineroom hadn’t been expected.
But the starters all played their part in Ireland taking control of the game and each of the replacements made a real impact with the powerful Wall and Hogan giving Ireland go-forward ball and sub scrumhalf Emily Lane looking lively.
The back-up props only got the last couple of minutes against France but Siobhan McCarthy had already taken over from Niamh O’Dowd when Linda Djougang was sinbinned for making contact with an Italian head in a tackle midway through the second half.
Djougang, now the only ever-present starter under Bemand, had forced her way over for Ireland’s fifth try five minutes earlier but the yellow card signalled the end of her afternoon as scrums replacement Haney stayed on after the sinbin period expired.
McMahon made way temporarily to facilitate Haney’s introduction and the Irish skipper had been impacted in a more direct sense in the Italian yellow card right at the start of the game when she took an opposing player’s shoulder to her head.
That was straight from the kick-off as McMahon caught the ball and carried hard into contact though, by the time play stopped for the TMO review, O’Brien had hoofed downfield, Dalton made her first big tackle and King got in to win a breakdown penalty.
Italian lock Valeria Fedrighi was sinbinned, O’Brien kicked to the left corner and Ireland probed briefly near the posts before going further right where Dalton had to retreat to collect a loose pass on the bounce but showed her pace and power in bursting over out wide.
Dalton’s touchdown came with less than two minutes on the clock, O’Brien nailed a fantastic touchline conversion to exorcise any demons from the weekend before and Ireland were off to the perfect start.
The second try came from a scrum well inside Ireland’s 22, with an initial carry by Higgins before O’Brien kicked long. Italy coughed up possession to Stacey Flood and the visitors went right with Higgins making a lovely break before floating a wide pass to McGann.
The rangy sevens athlete, imaginatively picked on the wing at the start of this Six Nations having had a go there for Clovers in the Celtic Challenge, strode down the touchline and round towards the posts, giving O’Brien a straightforward task in adding the extras.
Italy responded with their an unconverted try on 14 minutes when scrumhalf Sofia Stefan got too much space on a big blindside from a scrum, but disaster struck the hosts late in the first quarter when Dalton pounced on their grubber and set off up the right.
Playing with penalty advantage, Ireland went through a couple of phases and then fullback Flood set Higgins on another outside break. The centre drew a defender before freeing Amee-Leigh Murphy-Crowe, whose footwork and pace did the rest.
The Irish sevens skipper, who has scored over 200 tries on the World Series circuit, beat an attempted tackle with a shuffle and slight fend before showing the Italians a clean pair of heels on the left, and O’Brien again added the conversion to make it 21-5.
Good hands by O’Brien and Flood put McGann over for her second try in the right corner on 25 minutes assisted by a characteristic hard decoy run by Dalton which the Italian defence couldn’t ignore so helped create the opening.
Once again, O’Brien converted from out wide, but the half ended with Italy in the ascendancy and it was important that Ireland withstood the blue waves of pressure in the final few minutes before the interval.
The industrious Dalton had already put in some crunching hits and been a constant nuisance to the Italians, but it took the sturdy centre’s bravery and brilliance to deny the hosts what could have been a significant try with the clock red.
Fighting hard in the trenches with hefty forwards, the plucky little Offaly woman managed to get herself under the ball as Italy looked like they were finally going to force their way over, with the hold-up bringing relief for Ireland and the half-time whistle.
O’Brien put a kick out on the full very early in the second half but Dalton soon won a loose ball and a penalty which got Ireland on the attack until Wafer went over following a lineout with her namesake latched on, reminiscent of a Leinster try in Ravenhill last August.
Unfortunately, the try was disallowed following TMO consultation due to adjudged blocking at the lineout by O’Dowd so the score was still 28-5 when Wafer and Tuite were replaced by that formidable duo of Hogan and Wall with half an hour remaining.
Italy couldn’t stop Djougang grounding after an Ireland penalty into the corner and pressure from the resulting lineout, and Bemand made a triple substitution before the hour mark with McCarthy, Lane and Enya Breen coming on for O’Dowd, Reilly and Higgins respectively.
Djougang’s sinbinning soon afterwards necessitated a bit of shuffling but Ireland were relaxed enough about that to go ahead with another replacement immediately, Grace Moore relieving Campbell in the engineoom.
Official confirmation came that Djougang’s card rightly wasn’t being upgraded to red by the bunker review, Cliodhna Moloney replaced busy Ulsterwoman Neve Jones at hooker and Italy lost star winger Alyssa D’Inca to injury on 62 minutes.
O’Brien finally missed a conversion after the powerful Wall monstered her way over soon after, and Italy responded with a seven-pointer when vastly experienced centre Beatrice Rigoni was awarded a try following lengthy technical deliberations by the match officials.
Lane lost the ball forward just short of the line after making her second snipe in quick succession – she had earlier not given a potential scoring pass to Dalton – but any notion that this match might just drift to its conclusion now was wide of the mark.
Dalton did well to run onto an O’Brien kick which half sat up for her but couldn’t keep control of the ball moments before she was unveiled as the official Guinness Six Nations Player of the Match, the first such accolade of her career.
Still up for the battle, the diminutive Dalton even carried hard for the Italian line like a forward entering the final couple of minutes before the much bigger Hogan bashed her way over from a quickly-taken penalty, with O’Brien converting.
Ireland weren’t done yet though and, although Flood’s speculative chip gave away possession, the women in green turned it over one last time and Dalton filled in at scrumhalf for the start of a move which ended in McGann’s hat-trick and the half-century coming up.
Replacements Moore and Hogan carried initially, with Lane back at the breakdown when the latter was tackled just short of halfway. She serviced Breen at first receiver, with McMahon handling next before Flood hit Moloney with a deft flat pass.
The hooker slipped the ball nicely to tighthead Haney, who gave a wonderful offload to O’Brien coming onto it from deep and the flyhalf found McGann on her outside, with the 5’11” winger striding away gleefully from the Italian 10-metre line for her third try.
Player of the Match Dalton was credited with making 15 tackles alongside her nine forceful carries but those numbers barely reflect the intensity, intelligence and effectiveness of her contribution on both sides of the ball.
Talking of stats, it is fascinating that Italy actually shaded both possession and territory in this match, made more carries than Ireland, gained more metres and had to make fewer tackles than the visitors, yet lost by a margin in excess of 40 points.
Too much can be read into any set of figures and it would undoubtedly be wrong to conclude that Ireland will be favourites against England in Cork on Saturday week on the basis that they beat Italy by 42 points away while the Red Roses just did so by 33 at home!
England fielded a much stronger line-up as they thrashed Wales 67-12 in front of a record crowd of 21,186 on Cardiff on Saturday, while France comfortably beat Scotland 38-15 in La Rochelle the same day.
