On Monday afternoon, Dane was feeling the effects of a busy few weeks.

 

“Coming off the back of Saturday, it was quite draining so I’m a bit exhausted but all good, I can’t complain.”

 

Ireland beat Wales comprehensively in their first game before being handed quite a hammering by the French in their second match. A win against Italy was needed to raise the spirits.

 

“We were really delighted with the win, looking at our own individual performance we were a little bit unhappy with how we executed things, we wanted to try to put them to bed a bit earlier but our handling let us down. Ultimately, the talent is there and it’s really exciting that we are getting such good results and hopefully we’ll fill in the gap now between us and England and France.”

 

Reflecting upon the campaign as whole and the French defeat, Dane is hopeful they’ll make strides to raise their game to that level.

 

“The potential is there for us to someday compete against France. They had a very strong game against England last weekend and probably should have beaten them. I think we can take heart from that and be less hard on ourselves considering the calibre of rugby they’re playing at the minute. If we keep our heads down and keep building through World Cup qualifiers and hopefully a World Cup, we will get to that level and become world class.

 

“There’s so much potential in the team, it’s scary, and we’re quite a young team so there’s lots of new talent and hopefully lots of success in future.”