Easterby ready to keep Ireland ahead of the rest in Six Nations

ROME : Ireland interim coach Simon Easterby is ready to use his years of experience working with the side to take the country to a third successive Six Nations Championship success, and knows the team will need to improve to stay on top.

Easterby has been a part of the Ireland coaching set-up since 2014, but has now taken over the head coach role while Andy Farrell takes charge of the British & Irish Lions squad.

Ireland, Grand Slam winners in 2023 and champions last year, will be the team everyone wants to beat, and Easterby spoke at the launch of this year's Six Nations in Rome about how he is getting to grips with the new challenge.

"I guess trying to embrace everything, trying to build continuity in what we've done before," Easterby told reporters on Tuesday.

"I'm hugely excited about the group of players we've got to work with, the coaches, the continuity I guess in selection. There's not a lot of change from the autumn, not a lot of change from the last Six Nations.

"But the players are a year older, and I think that they're also hugely motivated to go on and keep being successful and staying ahead of the other teams."

This may be his first head coaching role since his time in charge of Scarlets more than a decade ago, but Easterby has had opportunities with Ireland to gain experience in leading a team.

"I've taken a young team, the emerging team, to South Africa. We've done that twice over the last couple of years and that's been beneficial for us as a coaching group," Easterby said.

"It's meant that other coaches in the system have had an opportunity to lead and I'm one of those myself. So that's been a really useful exercise and I get to know some of the younger players in the system as well, which has helped."

Easterby,