Dan Sheehan scored a hat-trick as Ireland overcame a sloppy start to keep alive their hopes of retaining the Guinness Six Nations title with an unconvincing 22-17 bonus-point success over Italy.
Seven days on from having their Grand Slam dream crushed by a 42-27 Dublin drubbing at the hands of France, Simon Easterby’s side scraped to victory in Rome to move top of the championship table ahead of Saturday’s other matches.
Hugo Keenan’s score cancelled out an early opener from Azzurri wing Monty Ioane before hooker Sheehan’s treble turned the contest in the visitors’ favour.
However, fly-half Jack Crowley, who started ahead of Sam Prendergast, squandered three of his four conversion attempts to leave Italy with hope of masterminding a shock.
Finishing with a W in Rome!
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