Ireland secure World Cup progess with laboured win over Italy

This was not as grim and attritional as some of us had feared. It was worse. It was a match from the old school: attritional, largely risk-free and, particularly in Ireland’s case, too disjointed for a team considered to be the fourth favourites to lift the Rugby World Cup. Their 16-9 victory ensures they will qualify for the knockout stages, but they will need to significantly improve against France next weekend if they are to top Group D and avoid the All Blacks in the quarter-finals.The list of positives that Ireland can take from this game is not a long one. There was the impressive perfor…