Ireland's Andrew Trimble has issued a warning to fellow-RBS 6 Nations championship sides.

It’s this: forget about that opening round defeat by Wales three weeks ago — Ireland, on their day, are unplayable, particularly in Dublin.

“If we can raise our level of performance up to where it should be and has been in the past then I think the sort of teams we’re playing in the Six Nations won’t be able to deal with us,” the Ulsterman said.

And the back-in-favour number 11 also hailed Munster’s Keith Earls whose inclusion on Ireland’s left wing in four of their five 2011 World Cup starting line-ups was at Trimble’s expense.

“Earlsy is an outstanding player,” was Trimble’s analysis of the player who, in the on-going absence of injured captain Brian O’Driscoll, once more is selected at outside centre.

“Serious, serious quality,” he added. “He’s got great feet so he’s going to bring something to the game.”

Urging the Aviva Stadium crowd to get behind Ireland in today’s showdown with Italy, Trimble said: “I don’t know whether it starts with us or it starts with the crowd, but I think we feed off them and they off us.

“Our performance against Wales wasn’t quite there and I don’t know whether that affected them (the supporters) or if it was the other way round.

“Against Wales, when things weren’t quite going our way, the crowd weren’t really getting there with us. But it’s difficult for them to feed off us if we’re not performing like we should be.

“For one reason or another something was lacking in that game, but we’ve worked hard this week to get our heads and our mindsets right.”