Ireland to be boosted by return of Sam Monaghan for Italy clash

The Ireland women’s team will be boosted by the return of influential secondrow Sam Monaghan for their Guinness Six Nations round two game against Italy at the RDS next Sunday (kick-off 3pm).

The 30-year-old Gloucester-Hartpury lock suffered a head knock playing for her club and missed Ireland’s Six Nations opener, the 38-17 loss to France in Le Mans last Saturday as a result, although she did take a full part in the warm-up and probably could have been passed fit to play.

In any event, Monaghan is set to be named in the secondrow when the team is announced at Friday lunchtime.

“Sam’s good to go,” said defence coach Declan Danaher after the squad’s Wednesday training session at the IRFU’s HPC in Sports Campus Ireland. “She has passed all her relevant protocols she’s needed to do, she’s training and it is good to be working with her. She’s an important part of our team in terms of lineout, so she’s good to go.

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“In terms of other people, Ruth Campbell will be out for a couple of weeks, she’s done something to her wrist, so she’s probably the only member of the squad whop’s not available.

“Off the back of the weekend, a pretty physical encounter, the girls were all battered and bruised, but they’re all good to go.”

Although Ireland scored two tries, there is an acceptance that they will need to show more attacking intent against Italy, who won last year’s meeting by 24-7 in Parma. But to that end, the return of Monaghan’s exceptional offloading game - which has earned her the nicknames ‘Sonny Bill Sam’ or ‘Sammy Bill’ - should add another dimension to Ireland’s attacking game.

Reflecting back on Ireland’s first much improved first outing since he was co-opted on to the Irish coach ticket to oversee the defence, Danaher said: “The positives are for me, the effort and work-rate and the intent we showed. Then from a review point of view, we’ve had a good look at ourselves, what we can control better, and we spoke with the girls around things like stopping driving tries, not allowing teams get that field position, but also little things around system; when you come under pressure where you’re meant to be, what you can do to stop it.

“There’s been come good discussions with forwards and backs but that would be one area we can challenge ourselves to be better. Italy are going to come with a drive as well, so we have to be ready for that.”