Italy game a must-win, says Ireland forward Deirbhile Nic a Bháird

Ireland's Deirbhile Nic a Bháird admits that their TikTok Women's Six Nations match against Italy is a must-win tie.

Last weekend, France outclassed and overpowered an inexperienced Irish outfit, who had also lost their opening game to Wales.

This is the first campaign with most of the squad professionally contracted but the team have been way off the standard required in their two outings so far and with games against Italy, Scotland and England to come, are in a battle to avoid the wooden spoon.

One of Ireland's better performers in Cork on Saturday, Nic a Bháird told RTÉ Sport: "Yeah, absolutely [it's important we win].

"Look, we take a lot more confidence out of our set-piece for this match.

"It's just about speed of ball really, that's one of the things that a differentiator between us and the other teams, how quickly we can move the ball from the ruck, how quickly we can resource the next ruck. That's going to be huge.

"The want and the work-rate is there, it's just an organisation thing at certain times in the match. That's something that we'll have to look at.

"We're certainly very confident after that in our set-piece so we'll be looking to build a platform off that."

The Cork native, who was winning her sixth cap, carried 19 times for 97 metres and made nine tackles on a day when Ireland conceded nine tries in a 53-3 loss.

"We tried identify that as one of my super-strengths, that's what we're calling them in here," she said about her own heads-up style.

"Briggsy [Niamh Briggs] coached me at Munster and that was one of the things that made us successful.

"I think the girls are well able to do it but I get lucky on the end of a few things as well but definitely we are trying to develop a better platform so we can play more