By Brendan O’Brien

Not quite a clean slate injury-wise, but Joe Schmidt must have been delighted with the roll call at Ireland’s team HQ this morning.

Of the 35 players he called into camp for the last two Six Nations encounters, against Italy and Scotland, the head coach was able to run all bar one through their paces.

And Munster’s Tommy O’Donnell, sidelined with a stinger injury to his shoulder which he picked up while on Munster duty against the Dragons over the weekend, is expected to tog out tomorrow.

That means Jared Payne, who missed the defeat to England two weekends ago with a hamstring injury suffered in the earlier defeat to France in Paris, is also good to go as Ireland seek to bag an elusive first win of the campaign.

That creates its own kind of pressure for a team more accustomed to lifting the Six Nations title this past two seasons.

Ulster winger Andrew Trimble admitted as much as he looked ahead to Saturday’s date with the winless Italians.

“It’s been pretty frustrating,” he said.

“We’re trying to be as positive as possible as we are creating opportunities, but we are just not converting them, not getting over the line.

“Just looking to Italy and going out to give a good account of ourselves on Saturday.

“You want to be in a position where you can try and win a championship but, as you said, this is a slightly different pressure, but you are never going to be able to avoid that pressure at any stage really.

“There is pressure coming from the press, supporters and coaches, but for ourselves there is a lot of pride to play for.

“We want to go out and give a good account of ourselves.

“We have shown glimpses of it but we just haven’t produced it for 80 minutes yet.

“We have let a couple of results slip by.”

The failure to bank a win in three opening games has led to inevitable questions as to the state of the player’s confidence, both individual and collective, though Trimble remarked that they have won enough in recent years to have built up a well of the stuff to get them through this drought.

The injection into the team of a trio of newbies in Twickenham – Josh van der Flier, Stuart McCloskey and Ultan Dillane – was a welcome and timely boost to the enthusiasm levels inside and outside camp and there were signs in London of a willingness to ‘play more rugby’.

Ireland’s approach has been a bone of contention for many observers, though Trimble was spot on when remarking that a commitment to so-called running rugby would be of little interest to punters if it didn’t coincide with success as well.

“People want to see us take more risks, but they only want to see it if the risks pay off,” he said.

“You get criticised if you don’t take risks and then you get criticised if you take them and they don’t come off.

“Nobody will be happy unless everything goes 100% according to plan and that isn’t always the case.

“We definitely have a few ideas as to how we break Italy down, but this is a quality Italian outfit and we have to be on the money this weekend, just make sure everything is sorted.

“They have produced a couple of decent displays so far and I’m sure this weekend will be no different.”