Six Nations: Italy v Ireland – backs coach Andrew Goodman on Rome
Goodman explained that the team has been cheered up after their combined losses to Dublin’s Les Bleus.
Goodman, who looked back on the failure, said, “It’s ugly, and even worse, come back.”
“The energy is a little lower because obviously this is a performance that we are not proud of.
“As coaches and conversations between coaching groups, there’s a lot of analysis done and it’s the first place to see where we can set up players better as a group of coaches.
“The tough few days, but after the release of the process, the energy levels are rebuilt, and we have to come back and bounce because the most important thing now is the response to the group, we want to go there, work together in six countries, for our fans, and we also want to go out there and give them some good stuff.”
The New Zealander confirmed that James Lowe and Ronan Kelleher recovered from back and neck injuries, respectively, are “making good progress”.
“They were both on the court today (Tuesday) and they were running around so it looked pretty good.
Garry Ringrose returned from the match in Rome, and after Wing Mack Hansen overcomes the injury to limbs and recovers from hamstring and calf injuries, he can use tadhg furlong, which has lost Miss Ireland’s first four six-country matches, plus their four tests.
“With Tadhg and the history of injury, we have to make sure that this is right, we don’t want to bring him back earlier and then he has setbacks again.
“We may be a little cautious about it to make sure he is 100% correct, and when he comes back he is fine and he will feel confident and comfortable coming to the court.”
