Keith Wood feels Ireland's "attitude was off" in the opening Six Nations loss to Scotland.
Joe Schmidt's side will look to bounce back decisively in this Saturday's match against Italy.
But on the key issues to rectify, Wood touched on a couple things when he spoke to Off The Ball.
"For me it comes down to attitude. I'm not saying it's a poor attitude from the players but I'm saying the attitude was off," he said.
"But I can tell you that the level of aggression was not there in our performance."
The former Ireland captain also touched on the issue of spacing and technical issues.
"Yes the spacing was wrong. The players weren't readjusting to get into the right positions," he said.
"Some of Scotland's tries were simple plays that hit up the middle and suddenly there was a total disjoint and you had Garry Ringrose standing one out from pillar. You don't want the fast guy in that position. You want him on the outside so that when the spacing is more vulnerable, your fast guys are able to cover it. That's one side of it.
"I would say the work-rate to get to the other side for an awful lot of the game was very poor. We didn't mark up well on the blindside. We often had four or five guys opposite one or two guys, which means it doesn't matter what you do with the spacing - the amount of work that the guys when they're outnumbered is hard and when you have the wrong guys in the wrong place and the spacing isn't exactly right and you don't have the work ethic to get across from the blindside to the openside, then you're going to suffer. And suffer is what we did."
Wood also feels Donnacha Ryan's form for Munster this season should put him in the frame to start in the second row.
"Donnacha Ryan in this season has been phenomenal," said Wood.
"His work-rate, the annoyance value that he has on the opposition is a pleasure to watch."
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