Ireland v Italy - Sunday 15:00. VM1.

38 -17 to Ireland, too many changes for Ireland, plus Italy are a decent team with an excellent backline.

Any chance of fixing the spelling of Ireland in the opening post as well?

I think this side is considerably weaker than the one that took the field last week and i can see the game being close for 60 mins.

mccloskey is a good player and deserves to play, but Aki has been performing a few levels above him for a while now. Stuart just doesnt have the same dynamic ability that aki has.

Casey is a step down on jgp in all facets of the game, not a massive step down but still a step down.

Baird will carry better that POM in traffic but we wont be able to put their lineout under as much pressure.

Beirne has been our most consistent reliable performer for a while now, often underrated he has been incredible in green and his experience will be a loss.

Doris out of position can have an impact, he has been incredible at 8 and it might be when vdf comes on for Conan that we see Doris making the most impact.

The other side is that Ryan and Henderson are fighting for their international lives, one of them wont be in the matchday 23 the next day and that pressure might bring the best out of them.

If we can carry the accuracy and intensity into this game that put france to the sword last week we can win easily but when a team makes that many changes it is going to have a knock on to the performance.

Irish rugby is back up on a cloud after last week, but i think that hope and expectation will be tempered a bit today

TV 3 really has a piss poor product in their rugby coverage. How Matt Williams is still getting gig time is beyond me

Do they still not broadcast in HD?

Broadcasting in SD is so bad, in this day and age.

can we ban this clown

I thought it was Casey singing.

Keenan is brilliant.

Good try.

Some great running from Keenan, Henshaw and excellent passing and support from Crowley.

Crowley was excellent in that passage of play and varied his attack well, but the most important thing to me is seeing Henshaw making powerful runs after his relatively poor run of recent form. Great start.

Keenan, Henshaw, Crowley excellent in that passage.

Excellent stuff from way back, everyone making yards, Keenan starting it, Crowley got the finish but also had lots of touches in the middle of it. Henshaw and Casey integral too. Great start.

Henshaws with some really nice carries early on. Lovely delay on the last pass from Casey, good to get that after the dodgy box kick.

Italy almost look like they're standing off Crowley, he has lots of room to carry to the line and put on some footwork.

No show like a Joe show.