Keith Wood was underwhelmed but not stressed by Ireland's performance in their 26-3 win over Italy in Rome on Saturday.
Speaking on Off the Ball yesterday, he described the first half as 'very strange' and riddled with errors. He doesn't believe that Ireland showed their hand yesterday.
'I just felt it was inaccurate. And too much of it was inaccurate. There was a whole series of play where it was just error after error after error. Yes, it was lacking in a bit of ambition and yes, at the very end it turned out fine.'
Wood thought that Munster out-half Ian Keatley matured well into the game after an obviously nervy opening. Keatley's inclusion was controversial and irked fans of the stylish Ian Madigan but Wood believes Keatley emerged from the game in credit.
'I think he did well. I thought he started very nervously. He made a couple of mistakes... I think he got a bit of a shock at the emotional intensity of the game. But I think after 20 minutes, he got to the beat of it and started doing things he wanted to do. I thought he grew into the game very well.'
Wood was deeply impressed with England's display on Friday night, using the word 'extraordinary' to describe England's second half performance.
'I thought it was an extraordinary marker. I thought Wales played really, really well in the first half. I thought they were aggressive, focused, accurate, strutting in some respects. But from the first minute of the second half, it was a different England and a different Wales. They were bullied out of the game.'
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