‘Ireland’s speed out of the blocks led to first Six Nations win of the year’, says captain Erin King
Ireland recorded their first Women’s Six Nations win of the season with a 57-20 victory over Italy in Galway on Saturday – and it owed much to a fast start according to captain Erin King.The Irish started slowly in last weekend’s defeat to England, finding themselves 21-0 down at half-time, before rallying in the second half.On this occasion, they scored seven first-half tries – including a hat-trick from Player of the Match Beibhinn Parsons – to take a commanding 45-10 advantage into the break.Emily Lan ran in the first try after just five minutes with Aoife Wafer going over eight minutes later. Parsons got her first on 18 minutes before Robyn O’Connor and Elena Perry got in on the act either side of Parsons’s second.The Galway girl added her third just before half-time in front of a home crowd of 9,206 at the Dexcom Stadium, with Dannah O’Brien converting five out of the seven first-half tries and Italy responded with two unconverted tries from Vittoria Vecchini and Vittoria Ostuni Minuzzi.“I suppose after last week there might have been some frustrations within the squad about how we started against England, so we probably placed a bit of an emphasis on that fast start,” King told RTE Sport.“We know what this squad is capable of and we really showed it in that first half. We came out the blocks firing and, yeah, just really proud of the girls for that start.“And today it was brilliant to get that confidence and show what the squad is capable of and just keep building on the performances that we’re putting in.“There’s probably a few fixes that we can take from today, a few learnings, and yeah, just keep improving at the end of the day.“The main focus is ourselves, and if we can keep improving in our squad, we’re happy.”Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald continued the try scoring two minutes into the second half, but a raft of changes slowed the scoring somewhat after that.However, there was still time for Brittany Hogan to cross for a ninth Ireland try on 71 minutes and they now face a trip to the Stade Marcel-Michelin in Clermont to take on France next Saturday.
