After a torrid night in Paris as Antoine Dupont, Louis Bielle-Biarrey and company ran rings around Ireland’s defence, the prospect of dealing with another dose of continental X-factor in the form of Italy centre Tommaso Menoncello might be the last task for an Irish midfielder to look forward to in Dublin on Saturday.
Yet Stuart McCloskey, one of the few Ireland players to emerge with credit from the chastening 36-14 defeat to France eight days ago, has no choice but to roll up the sleeves and get on with the job of shackling the dynamic 23-year-old when the in-form Italians pitch up at Aviva Stadium for this second-round Guinness Six Nations clash.
Menoncello is no unknown quantity having won the 2024 Six Nations player of the championship award, but like his Azzurri colleagues, the Benetton star has hit the ground running in 2026. A powerhouse performance in Rome last Saturday helped Italy score a memorable 18-15 victory over Scotland in atrocious conditions as torrential rain drenched Stadio Olimpico. Menoncello scored an early try for Gonzalo Quesada’s side as the home side got out to a fast start and led the game with 103 metres made, beating four defenders. Significantly, he also spearheaded a resolute defensive effort with centre partner Ignacio Brex to get the Italians over the line.
Brex will be missing on Saturday for family reasons but though that may bring some relief for Andy Farrell’s team, Ireland’s inside centre is still wary of Menoncello’s threats.
“He’s got that X-factor, his pace, he’s powerful,” McCloskey said earlier this week. “He’s got a pretty good offloading game. He breaks more tackles than most other centres as well.
“I don’t know if Brex is going to play this week, but him and Brex have got a great partnership. I think when you have that as well, you sort of feed off each other. Brex sometimes doesn’t get all the plaudits, but I think he’s a lot to do with why Menoncello gets a lot of half-shoulders and is allowed to look as good as he is.
“Hopefully that’s disrupted a wee bit this week, but I think his X-factor is just physicality. He’s probably one of the most athletic centres in the world, if not the most athletic. So trying to get on top of him physically for me is probably priority one.”
Ireland clearly have some urgent improvements to make in attack as well as defensively following their opening-round defeat after lack of fluency with ball in hand and a kicking strategy ruthlessly exposed by French aerial superiority. Yet McCloskey believes the lack of traction at Stade de France, except for a punchy period midway through the second half when Nick Timoney and Michael Milne both scored tries, was down to individual errors rather than systems failures.
“I think we’re trying to evolve. And when any team tries to evolve, there’s obviously a bit of teething problems,” the Ulster centre said.
“I don’t think it was so much the attack, rather than more dropped balls at the weekend. I think we maybe had about nine knock-ons. I know the weather was greasy, but they made it look fairly simple at times. So I think it’s hard to get into your attack and really get any flow when there’s a lot of disjointed dropped balls.
“Set-piece went well at the weekend, we had ball there. We didn’t really get any balls back in the aerial game, which is what we sort of targeted early. And they did really well there, to be fair to them. I think we thought we could get after them, all three back-three for them did a great job. We had to adapt and probably left it a wee bit too late to adapt.
McCloskey added: “You’ve got to adapt quickly in this game. You have a few bad games, and people shouldn’t write you off, so you’ve got to adapt pretty quickly and go forward,” particularly with Italy’s form under Quesada confirming that their former tag of Six Nations whipping boys no longer applies.
“They’ve got so much better, and they have been doing that for the last few years. Like beating Scotland at the weekend…. For me, it’s the backs, Brex and Menoncello; played against them a few times now. It’s always been a good contest but they’re probably the heartbeat of the team. I know Brex might not be there this week, but whoever goes in there in his place, I’m sure will do the same job. (Ange) Capuozzo, (Paolo) Garbisi, I think all these guys are pretty hot when you let them be on the day.
“So try and get in their faces, try to disrupt their game. Don’t give them that flow that their backs are looking for. And yet they still have that physicality but hopefully we can be just physical, if not more.”
