Ireland went top of the Six Nations table with a 38-9 victory over Italy at Rome's Stadio Flaminio.

The Emerald Isle never came close to the heights they reached a week ago in their thrilling 30-21 defeat of France but they didn't have to as Italy once again committed rugby suicide.

Man of the match Luke Fitzgerald admitted that it had taken a while for the Irish to get their act together.

"We made a few errors and made it tough for ourselves," said Fitzgerald, who scored his first two international tries.

"The turning point was the second try (his first at the end of the first-half).

"Thank God we got it. As for the England match (in a fortnight's time in Dublin) well they are always going to be tough. It will be a tough challenge but we are looking forward to it."

Ireland coach Declan Kidney said he was delighted with the manner in which his side had stuck to their task.

"It paid to be patient because Italy put us under a lot of pressure, especially with their kicking," Kidney said.

"We also had a fair share of luck with the first try, but it was an immense relief to take the lead, especially for the second half."

His Italy counterpart Nick Mallet said his side had been guilty of ill discipline.

"I thought the team played courageously," said the England-born coach.

"But you do not win matches when you have players sin binned (two in the first half) when one is reduced to 14 men and concede 16 penalties.

"There was too much ill discipline. I cannot compare the matches against England (36-11 defeat) and Ireland: when one concedes more than 30 points like today and last week one doesn't make a commentary.

"We just have to buckle down, focus and improve."

A week ago Italy had suffered a disastrous start against England by losing their own line-out deep inside their 22 before Andy Goode touched down just 90 seconds in.

They shot themselves in the foot again, this time after a mere 45 seconds as fullback Andrea Masi was sin-binned for a high tackle on his opposite number Robert Kearney.

And while they survived that initial blow, it was a string of mistakes similar to those at Twickenham that cost them a thumping defeat that didn't reflect the true nature of the game.

Italy were more than competitive in the early stages and benefited from Ireland twice choosing to kick penalties to the corner rather than having a pop at goal as Ronan O'Gara got put off by the breeze.

However, the error-prone Italians made a costly mistake on 19 minutes when Tommy Bowe picked off a long pass from Paul Griffen aimed at Mirco Bergamasco and ran fully 60 yards with three Italians in tow before touching down despite Kaine Robertson's last ditch tackle.

Ronan O'Gara kicked the extra points but Australian born five-eighth Luke McLean continued his impeccable place-kicking on 24 minutes to slot his third penalty and give the hosts a 9-7 lead.

O'Gara was then sin-binned just past the half hour mark for tackling Gonazalo Canale without the ball but McLean narrowly missed the resultant penalty.

Italy looked like they would hold out until the break but Stephen Ferris broke the line on the 18th phase and offloaded to Fitzgerald to touch down for his first international try with just two seconds left to the whistle.

Kearney kicked the extra two points as Italy turned around with a morale-sapping 14-9 deficit.

And within seven minutes of the restart things had gone from bad to worse for the hosts as Griffen missed a tackle on marauding number eight Jamie Heaslip who strode to within a yard of the line before he was brought down by Matteo Pratichetti.

A couple of phases later flanker David Wallace broke two tackles for a simple score and O'Gara's conversion made it 21-9 to the visitors.

Italy kept plugging away until the final five minutes when two more mistakes were ruthlessly punished by Ireland to give the score a lop-sided look.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP