Ireland have suffered a huge scare before finally securing a 26-16 bonus-point win over Italy in the Six Nations in Rome.
Tries from Quinn Roux and Jacob Stockdale saw Ireland take an early grip on proceedings at the Stadio Olimpico but Italy responded through scores from Edoardo Padovani and Luca Morisi to hold an unexpected 16-12 lead at the break.
However, Ireland kept Italy scoreless in the second half and further tries from Keith Earls and Conor Murray sealed the hard-fought victory for Joe Schmidt's side.
The win sees Ireland move up to third in the Six Nations table with nine points after three rounds, one off England and three behind leaders Wales, who remain the only unbeaten side in the tournament after defeating Eddie Jones' side 21-13 in Cardiff Saturday.
"We are happy to get the bonus point but it's frustrating we didn't put down as good a marker as we wanted to," Stockdate told ITV.
"If we knew what it was, we would fix it, but we have two wins out of three in this tournament and we are just focusing on the next game."
An opening period of Irish pressure resulted in the first try of the game after 11 minutes when Roux burrowed over beside the posts following 19 phases of possession with Johnny Sexton slotting the easy conversion.
Tomasso Allan got Italy's first points on the scoreboard with a quarter of the game gone but Stockdale scored straight from the kick-off when Michele Campagnaro knocked on and the Irish winger scooped up the loose ball to race for his ninth try in eight Six Nations games.
Ireland failed to push on and Italy remained in touch with another Allan penalty before a misplaced line-out ball from Sean Cronin was picked up Jayden Hayward, who raced the length the length of the pitch only to be stopped just short of the line.
The ball came out to Allan who floated a long pass for Padovani to stroll over unopposed.
Another Italy breakout two minutes before the break resulted in Italy's second try, when Padovani was again held up close to the line before the ball was fed out in the other direction for Morisi to score and send the home side into the break holding a surprise lead.
Ireland upped the tempo after the restart and regained the lead on 50 minutes when Earls rounded off another bout of strong pressure to score his side's third try. Conor Murray slotted the conversion.
The bonus-point win was secured with 14 minutes remaining when Murray finished off a rolling maul to score.
Ian McKinley missed an opportunity to give Italy a losing bonus point when he skewed a late penalty wide.
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