IN 2019 Ireland went into the Six Nations Championship as the number-one ranked team in the world at the start of what was a World Cup year. 

History has repeated itself four years on, but with one key difference, as by this stage of the 2019 championship the wheels had already started to come off the Irish bandwagon, whereas right now there is no sign of any chink in Ireland’s armour whatsoever.

Irish rugby fans got badly burnt four years ago so have probably been overly cautious about being made a fool of twice. Some pundits have been at pains to say that this time it is different, that this time they can go all the way at the World Cup, or at least get past the quarter-finals, but it all felt a tad too familiar.

But here we are, just over six months out from the kick-off in France, and Ireland are still looking and playing like the top side in the world. At what stage do we start to believe?

The game against Italy in the Six Nations is annually the fixture where fans expect to see the most experimentation, but right smack in the middle of a Grand Slam bid we should only expect a couple of changes.

Captain Johnny Sexton is a doubt but should be rested anyway, and it gives Ireland head coach Andy Farrell an opportunity to get some game time into more of his squad, even if that is only off the bench.

Farrell is certainly building depth in Ireland’s squad, although the likes of Hugo Keenan, Garry Ringrose and Josh van der Flier have arguably been overly utilised, meaning that we could get caught out at the World Cup at full-back, outside centre and openside, should there be any unfortunate or ill-timed injuries. There is certainly scope for Farrell to assess alternate options in these positions, although we are unlikely to see it this weekend.

Kieran Crowley’s charges cannot be taken lightly. After all, they pushed France to the pin of their collar on the opening weekend, even leading at the hour mark, before succumbing 24-29 to a late Matthieu Jalibert try, and they famously beat Australia by 28-27 in Florence in November.

In saying that, when the fixtures were originally announced for this tournament this game would have been earmarked as the one that would be the eye of the storm in Ireland’s Grand Slam bid, or the opportunity to take a breather mid-competition, before the potentially seismic encounters against Scotland and England in the coming weeks.

EXPECTATION

We can pretend to be cautious all we want, and say all the right things about giving Italy the respect that they deserve, but the Rubicon of expectation has been well and truly crossed now by all Irish supporters. Anything less than a third Irish Grand Slam this century would feel like a letdown at this stage given the form of the past two years and the manner of the victories over Wales and France.

Bar an early Irish red card it is difficult to make any sort of a case for an Italian victory here, and Ireland look so bulletproof at the minute, in all facets of the game, that you would even back them with 14 men.

Italy are attempting to be much more expansive these days, with almost everything positive that they do coming through their exciting and elusive full-back Ange Capuozzo. He may have the physical profile of a soccer player rather than a rugby player, but he can really spark that backline into life. They tend to structure most of their attacking plays to engineer opportunities for him, so the Irish defence will be keeping a very close eye on the Toulouse flyer on Saturday.

Ireland have conceded only one try per game so far. You would imagine that the Azzurri would be doing extremely well to maintain their current rate of two tries per game against what is the stingiest defence in the competition to date. Meanwhile, Ireland have managed to score four tries in both their games, and you would expect them to at least match that this weekend at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.