Ireland 'trying a bit too hard' in Italy win - Easterby

Ireland interim head coach Simon Easterby felt his side were "trying to force things" in their 22-17 Six Nations win over Italy.

A Dan Sheehan hat-trick helped the visitors to a bonus-point win in Rome but, after struggles to convert in their defeat by France last week, they again left a number of scores behind them.

Knowing that Ireland needed to record as big a win as possible and hope results elsewhere went their way to have any hope of retaining their title, Easterby said his side were "trying to force things".

Ultimately, England's bonus-point win over Wales in Cardiff later in the day meant Ireland were out of the running, regardless of their own result.

"Sometimes, you are trying a bit too hard to make passes stick or one more pass at the line," Easterby said.

"Credit to Italy, they put us under pressure and we didn't deal with that as well as we should have done.

"We got the five points we needed, maybe not the scoreline we intended, but part of that is down to accuracy and trying to force things that went on."

'I hope that it will be a springboard'

Caelan Doris speaks to Simon Easterby — Caelan Doris captained Ireland for a first Six Nations in 2025 [Getty Images]

Skipper Caelan Doris said that the title scenarios were not a huge focus during the week but thought they had an impact as the game wore on.

Ireland went behind through Monty Ioane's try in the 12th minute before leading 12-10 at the break thanks to scores from Hugo Keenan and Sheehan.

Sheehan scored two second-half tries to complete his hat-trick but Ireland could not press home their advantage and finished the game requiring a defensive stand to see out the win.

"It wasn't something that was overly pushed or anything during the week because of the respect we have for Italy and their attack, what their capable of," said Doris of the need to rack up points.

"It was very much 'result first' but there was probably a little bit of feeling when momentum was coming with us, given how the first 20-30 went, that we wanted to convert when we got the chance.

"Maybe there was a little bit of forcing things out there. There were quite a number of last passes that didn't go to hand. Why? Maybe forcing things, I'm not sure."

Ireland won their first three games of the championship, securing the Triple Crown against Wales in Cardiff last month.

Their hopes of a Grand Slam, however, were ended by a heavy defeat by France in round four.

"I think there's been a lot of good stuff," added Doris of the campaign as a whole.

"Our first three games, winning the Triple Crown within that, showed quite a lot of positive things in there.

"There's lots of things we can learn and grow from over the last couple of weeks and I hope that it will be a springboard for us as a group to go and continue to evolve and a bit of a realisation that there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot in us."

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