Ireland 16-9 Italy
by Michael McCann
at the Olympic Stadium

CONNOR MURRAY is relieved that Ireland can finally discuss their upcoming Pool D clash against France, after a 16-9 win over Italy on Sunday secured their quarter-final place.

The scrum-half admitted the squad has been consciously avoiding the topic before sealing qualification — victory against Les Blues avoids a knockout match against defending champions New Zealand.

“It’s massive. It was hard not to talk about it for the last few weeks because a lot of the fans were asking questions about it.

It was in the back of everyone’s minds a little bit and now it’s come around.

“We’re happy we’re through after a scrappy win and we know that in a week of training we can fix a lot of the things that didn’t go to plan. We’ve got a week to get things right and build ourselves up for a massive game.”

Back Sean O’Brien agreed with Murray that an improvement in performance was needed to defeat France in Cardiff next Sunday and retain their unbeaten record in the tournament.

“Certain things didn’t go our way in the game obviously but we didn’t help ourselves at times. We were sloppy with some of our play and probably played a little bit too much in our own half.

“We’re going to have to review an awful lot and make sure we’re on our game for next week. If we’re not, France are so dangerous that they’ll punish you.”