Dan Sheehan scored a hat-trick as Ireland overcame a sloppy start to keep alive their hopes of retaining the Six Nations title with an unconvincing bonus-point success over Italy.

Seven days on from having their Grand Slam dream crushed by a 42-27 Dublin drubbing at the hands of France, Simon Easterby’s side scraped to victory in Rome to move top of the championship table ahead of Saturday’s other matches.

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