Despite a 56-19 bonus point victory over Italy in the second round of the 2018 Six Nations, Ireland will regret the scores they afforded the Italians according to for Irish internationals Donnacha Ryan and Fiona Steed.
Speaking to Adrian Barry after the game at the Aviva Fan Studio, Ryan said that the side will be disappointed with their sloppy defensive mistakes, though he noted that some of the scores came from Ireland playing an open game as they looked to rack up more score for themselves.
"Two of the tries came from the attack. Before the game I was thinking there was going to be an intercept because when you are trying to pass the ball around you are putting guys under pressure, especially with fatigue you'll always have one outlier who'll just try to cut through the line and will try to catch an intercept".
"I don't know if it'll come back and bite us in the arse come the end of the tournament from a points differential point of view, but I'm sure Andy Farrell would have been saying the goal at half time was to give them zero at the end of it".
Steed said that the defensive mistakes came down to "A number of things. We touched on it at half-time about how they'd reset and refocus, and what they're are were for the second half, but I don't think it'd happen in a tighter game".
She noted all of the changes Ireland had made to the side that had started the game as a potential reason for the score conceded in the second half, and claimed concentration came be a problem in games when a side is winning comfortably, as "it's hard sometimes to build yourself up when you're winning by so much".
"You can bet when it comes to reviewing this next week it won't be 'oh god how did we score the tries?', it'll be 'how did we let them in?' ".
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
