{"id":292790,"date":"2026-02-11T18:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292790\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T18:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T18:24:17","slug":"irish-rugby-opta-facts-guinness-mens-six-nations-ireland-v-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292790\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Rugby | Opta Facts: Guinness Men\u2019s Six Nations \u2013 Ireland v Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland return to the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, determined to put last week\u2019s losing start behind them when they host Italy in the second round of the Guinness Men\u2019s Six Nations<\/a>. Check out the Opta Facts, provided by\u00a0Stats Perform<\/a>, ahead of the opening home game of 2026 for Andy Farrell\u2019s men.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland have won 25 of their 26 matches against Italy in the Men\u2019s Six Nations, including their last 12 in a row<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland won by just five points in their last meeting with the Italians, their closest match in the Championship since 2011 (a 13-11 win against Italy)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland have won each of their 13 home games against Italy in the Men\u2019s Six Nations, the only team they have a 100% winning rate against in Dublin in the tournament<\/p>\n

\u2013 Additionally, they have never trailed at half-time at home to Italy, going into the break ahead on 12 occasions and level once, back in 2006<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland lost their last home fixture in the Championship, going down 42-27 t0 France, ending a run of 10 straight victories at the Aviva Stadium in the Men\u2019s Six Nations<\/p>\n

\u2013 Since Italy joined in 2000, only once have Ireland lost consecutive home matches, doing so in 2010-2011 (against Scotland and France)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Italy have won two and drawn one of their last eight away encounters in the Men\u2019s Six Nations (L5), the same number of wins and draws as they had away from home across their previous 57 such games in the Championship since joining in 2000 (L54)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland have lost two of their last three Men\u2019s Six Nations matches, both against France. That is as many defeats as they had suffered in their preceding 21 games in the Championship (W19)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2013 If the men in green lose this match, it will be just the second time they have opened a campaign with two losses (also 2021)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Italy won the most opposition lineouts of any team in the opening round of the 2026 Men\u2019s Six Nations (5), while Ireland were the only team not to win a single one of their opponents\u2019 throws last week<\/p>\n

\u2013 However, Farrell\u2019s charges have won 28\/28 of their own lineouts across their last two games against Italy in the Championship<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland completed 62.8% of their rucks in three seconds or fewer against France, the highest rate of any team in round 1 last week. Italy were the only side to complete less than half of their rucks in that time (47.2%)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Italy were the only team with a tackle success rate above 90% across the opening round (91.4%). In fact, it was the Azzurri\u2019s highest rate in a Six Nations game since the final round of the 2017 Championship (91.8% against Scotland)<\/p>\n

\u2013 No one made more tackles than the Cannone brothers, Niccolo\u00a0and Lorenzo, in the opening round, with 26 and 19 tackles, respectively. In fact, the top five players were all Italian \u2013 Manuel Zuliani (19), Andrea Zambonin (18), and Simone Ferrari (18) completed the list<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland\u2019s Tadhg Beirne won a round-high three turnovers against France last Thursday. The last time an Irish player claimed more turnovers in a Six Nations match was in 2014 when Chris Henry won four against Italy<\/p>\n

Six Nations Fantasy Rugby is back and bigger than ever with some amazing prizes to be won and an Irish Rugby Supporters league for you to join.\u00a0Click here to sign up today!<\/a><\/p>\n


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\n Ulster Add Irish-Qualified Pair To Academy Squad <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland return to the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, determined to put last week\u2019s losing start behind them when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-292790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}