Ireland

Ireland's earlier four-try, 28-8 win over Scotland had left England needing a bonus-point victory in Paris to keep their title hopes alive.

It is Ireland's third title in five years under Joe Schmidt but Johnny Sexton said celebrations were "muted".

They will win the Grand Slam if they beat England next Saturday.

"It's a strange feeling to win the championship with a game to go," said Irish fly-half Sexton.

Henshaw appeared to dislocate his shoulder as he scored his second try of the comfortable win in Dublin, the Leinster back leaving the field with his injured right arm in a sling.

Coach Joe Schmidt had hoped there would be good news about the centre, but scans on Monday confirmed Henshaw would need an operation.

The 24-year-old has already had surgery to correct the problem but that means he will play no further part in the tournament.

The Pacific Nations Cup holders opened their Northern Tour with a 19-10 defeat by Italy in Catania at the weekend, who the home side avenging their loss in Suva in June.

The result denied Fiji a chance to overtake France in the test rankings and coach John McKee said they struggled for cohesion with the squad having come together at short notice from all corners of the globe.

"We had some good individual performances but probably our key combinations didn't operate as well as we needed to to put the Italians under any sort sustained pressure," he said.

Allister Coetzee's side came to Dublin having recovered from a 57-0 thrashing to New Zealand in Albany in September by pushing the world champions to within a point a month later but it was back to the drawing board at the Aviva Stadium.

"It's a tough day, it's not what any of us wanted. We've no excuses and we're going to have to rectify this, us and the management," South Africa captain Eben Etzebeth told a news conference.

Great focus ahead of the game, the Ireland squad is looking forward to facing home side PNG Kumuls tomorrow (Nov 5).

This morning’s captain’s run was Ireland’s way of getting into the momentum following the week’s public outreach with National Capital District residents.

Tomorrow’s clash against the PNG LNG Kumuls will determine who ends up in the quarter finals, making it out of the pool matches and PNG hopes to be that team after they overcome this Ireland outfit.

Having scored just 14 points at the 2013 World Cup, the Irish matched that tally inside 20 minutes and then kicked on in the second half after the Azzurri had threatened a comeback with tries either side of the interval. 

"To be fair, that's not a bad crowd in Ireland," says captain Liam Finn.

Finn may or may not surpass Bob Beswick – absent from this tour as his wife is expecting – as Ireland's most capped player during this World Cup tour, with the uncertainty due to the fact that he believes he has more than Beswick's 25 Irish caps already.

"Who's got more? Bob Beswick? I'm sure I've got more," says Finn, who on a number of websites is credited with 24 international caps.

Mark Aston has kept the core squad together that have been a part of the last few European Championships and the players that qualified for the tournament last Autumn.

The evergreen Liam Finn and Scott Grix lead the side as captain and vice-captain with over 20 years of experience now playing for Ireland.

Hosts Ireland won a nail-biting Women's Rugby World Cup Pool C opener against battling Australia in Dublin.

Larissa Muldoon's converted first-half try, against a Mahalia Murphy score, had Ireland 7-5 ahead at the interval.

Shannon Parry's touchdown edged the Wallaroos in front but replacements Ciara Griffin and Sophie Spence crossed to put Ireland on the road to victory.

The 2014 semi-finalists survived a late scare after prop Hilisha Samoa's try was converted by Ashleigh Hewson.

Ireland have moved up one spot following their 50-22 win over Japan while Scotland beat the Wallabies in Sydney 24-19.

Joe Schmidt's Irish side added seven tries to the nine they managed against the USA the week before in Philadelphia as they registered another convincing victory in the second match of their three-game tour of North America and Japan.

Australia are now fourth on the world rankings, just ahead of Scotland.

Scotland leap-frogged South Africa into fifth place.