Italy v Ireland stats

MATCH FACTS
Head-to-head

• Ireland have never lost to Italy in the Six Nations.

• The teams have met five times in the opening match of the Six Nations.

Italy

• Italy have lost their opening match in the Six Nations for the last seven years in a row.

• Italy have won just seven Six Nations matches - five of those have come against Scotland and two against Wales.

• Italy's only two wins in 2010 came against Scotland and Fiji.

Ireland

• Ireland have won two of their last three Tests, having lost the previous four.

• Ireland have won their opening match in the Six Nations for the last six years in a row, beating Italy on four of those occasions.

• Ireland's Ronan O'Gara is the all-time leading points-scorer in the Six Nations with 527.


TEAM LINE-UPS
Italy: 15-Luke McLean, 14-Andrea Masi, 13-Gonzalo Canale, 12-Alberto Sgarbi, 11-Mirco Bergamasco, 10-Kristopher Burton, 9-Edoardo Gori; 1-Salvatore Perugini, 2-Leonardo Ghiraldini, 3-Martin Castrogiovanni, 4-Santiago Dellape, 5-Quintin Geldenhuys, 6-Josh Sole, 7-Alessandro Zanni, 8-Sergio Parisse (captain)

Replacements: 16-Fabio Ongaro, 17-Andrea Lo Cicero, 18-Carlo Antonio Del Fava, 19 Valerio Bernabo, 20-Pablo Canavosio, 21-Luciano Orquera, 22-Gonzalo Garcia

Ireland: 15-Luke Fitzgerald, 14-Fergus McFadden, 13-Brian O'Driscoll (captain), 12-Gordon D'Arcy, 11-Keith Earls, 10-Jonathan Sexton, 9-Tomas O'Leary; 1-Cian Healy, 2-Rory Best, 3-Mike Ross, 4-Donncha O'Callaghan, 5-Paul O'Connell, 6-Denis Leamy, 7-David Wallace, 8-Sean O'Brien

Replacements: 16-Sean Cronin, 17-Tom Court, 18-Leo Cullen, 19-Shane Jennings, 20-Eoin Reddan, 21-Ronan O'Gara, 22-Paddy Wallace.


MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Romain Poite (FRA)

Touch judges: Jerome Garces (FRA) & David Changleng (SCO)

TV: Geoff Warren (ENG)

Looking forward to the 6th Nations this year
not sure how Ireland will do

I'm actually enjoying this game so far. Seems pretty close as it approaches the end of the first half.

It's great RTE went back to their old music.....

Hobo will be happy......now that miss could be important.

And it did prove important, with Ronan O'Gara hitting a drop goal to give Ireland the win.

sorry to say Ireland sucked, The worst game I have seen by them in a long while
If they play like this next week against France, we will get killed