Italy have a ridiculously straightforward way of dealing with one of Ireland’s attacking threats

Sounds pretty simple.

This wasn’t the way we had hoped Ireland would be entering the second round of this year’s Six Nations.

Most of us would have been expecting Joe Schmidt’s side to be heading to Rome on the back of a tough but ultimately straightforward win against Vern Cotter’s Scotland.

Of course, by now, we know that this upcoming match against Italy has taken on a new meaning due to the disappointing display in Murrayfield.

Rather than perhaps using this opportunity to field some players not involved in the match day 23 in Edinburgh, Ireland will now have to go all guns blazing in the hope that they can secure a bonus point in an attempt to maintain their tournament aspirations.

Although Scotland played very well at the weekend, Ireland will need to improve in a number of areas if they are to secure victory against Conor O’Shea’s side.

One of these is the lineout.

Although Ireland had an 85% success rate with this set piece, their inaccuracies came at crucial times, deep within the opposition 22.

As we all know, historically, Ireland’s lineout is often the source of many of their scores and the lynchpin of this lineout, Devin Toner, is often the go to man to secure ball at these vital times.

For Italy, they are well aware of this, and their plan to deal with Toner’s towering presence is to simply avoid him.

“In the lineout you have to try to stay as far away from him (Toner) as possible, because he’s able to cover the last few feet virtually on his own,” Italian lock George Biagi told Sky Sports. 

Biagi reveals that they will attempt to stay in front of Toner at lineout time as they see him as the main threat in this regard.

“We will have to try to move him around and to stay in front of him at the lineout, because if you find yourself behind him it is very, very difficult to counter.”

With some changes expected for Ireland’s trip to Italy, the Azzurri may yet have to deal with another proficient lineout operator, Munster’s Donnacha Ryan.

The Tipperary man is one of the names being thrown about this week when it comes to new faces in the Irish XV.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10