Make or break for Ireland – who do you think will win?

Having bludgeoned way back into Ireland’s starting line-up Ulster’s Iain Henderson has hailed his second row partner Paul O’Connell in the lead up to Sunday’s Rugby World Cup tie with Italy.

A near full-strength Irish team racked up 94 points in its first two matches. We knew how tough this game was going to be all the time.

Talking about the new additions to the team, Murray said he was confident in his team mates and felt they were a “good unit”. “Maybe we were lulled into a false sense of security in the last couple of weeks”.

Peter O’Mahony’s desperate try-saving tackle on Josh Furno spared Ireland’s blushes in a 16-9 victory over Italy, as Joe Schmidt’s men qualified for the World Cup quarter-finals.

The Italy squad, equally desperate to win to stay in quarterfinals contention, was roused even more by the first appearance of fit-again No. 8 Sergio Parisse, who led by example as always.

The Ireland pack is a very settled unit and looks to have a better balance of set-piece ability and loose skills; Italy are a bit more workmanlike, bar Parisse. It has never made the last eight.

“This was a missed chance”, coach Jacques Brunel said.

Combative Munster flanker O’Mahony was sin-binned with nine nervy minutes to play for charging shoulder-first into a ruck, with Italy just a converted try behind.

“I think when you make mistakes and give away penalties, it kind of flattens the performance because you can’t get into any rhythm”, O’Connell added.

“Parisse will be a massive boost for them, however we will happily rise to the challenge”.

Allan’s second penalty brought Italy within four points, before Sexton struck the left-hand upright with a penalty attempt of his own.

But since Schmidt has taken control of the IRFU army, Ireland have racked up two wins over the Azzurri and outscored them by 72-10 cumulatively.

A week after being largely responsible for the biggest ever World Cup attendance when Ireland’s large expatriate community and travelling fans packed out London’s Wembley Stadium, it was the turn of the 54,000 capacity Olympic Stadium to more closely resemble a home fixture in Dublin.

“Now we’re in the third week of games and definitely there’s a feeling of knock-out rugby for us this week, and obviously it’s opponents we’re really familiar with and they’re really familiar with us as well”.

The average age of the Ireland side named for Sunday is 28 years and 277 days, younger than both the teams picked so far and 23-year-old Henderson is looking forward to the lineout contest with the Italians.