Ireland captain was enthused by his try but less pleased with his side's display in Rome © Getty Images

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Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll hailed his side's dramatic 13-11 victory over Italy in Rome on Saturday as a "great result" but admitted that he and his colleagues have much work to do ahead of next weekend's clash with France.

The Irish had never before been beaten by the Azzurri in the Six Nations but that proud record looked set to come to an end when the home side took a one-point lead with just over five minutes to play courtesy of Luke McLean's try.

However, despite having only 14 men following the 73rd-minute sin-binning of Denis Leamy, Ireland finished superbly well, engineering a drop-goal attempt for Ronan O'Gara, which the replacement fly-half took with aplomb to nick a crucial win for the visitors.

"The longer they stayed in the game the more of a threat they were going to be," O'Driscoll said. "We didn't kill them off and then we spilled the ball five metres out. You can't have those sort of mistakes in Test rugby. You don't get away with them.

"But it was a great result to be able to come back from that. We needed a drop goal in the last few minutes and we got it from Ronan.

"We made a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes today. But you can have a substandard performance and lose and have a substandard performance and win. Fortunately for us we won today but there is a lot of work to be done."

However, O'Driscoll believes that despite the fortuitous nature of the victory that Ireland are a side moving in the right direction and that they can put things right against Les Bleus in Dublin next Sunday.

"We created a huge number of opportunities, it's just we lacked the clinical edge and that was the frustrating thing," said O'Driscoll. "Our shape was excellent at times, we threatened an awful lot and created those opportunities. But through bad handling and bad passing we let Italy off the hook. We shouldn't have been in the situation we were in with five minutes to go.

"It comes down to individual responsibility and hopefully that's an easy fix. The guys will have to look at the video, which won't be a thing of beauty. Our shape was miles better in this game than against South Africa in the autumn. We really stretched Italy at times."

O'Gara was undoubtedly the hero of the day for the Irish, having once again demonstrated great composure under intense pressure to land the winning score. However, Ireland head coach Declan Kidney was reluctant to heap too much praise on the veteran fly-half.

"It was a good team drop goal. Everyone knew what they were doing and Ronan fulfilled his part of it," Kidney said. "Jonathan Sexton had an excellent game and we're blessed with two excellent outside-halves."

Looking ahead to France's visit to the Aviva Stadium, Kidney insisted that he was hopeful that Ireland could find a ruthless streak in just seven days.

"We have a game under our belts here," the former Munster boss said. "We were far from the finished article out there and we know we have a lot of work to do to become more clinical."

Meanwhile, Italy coach Nick Mallett was understandably devastated that his side had squandered the opportunity to claim a first Championship win over the Irish.

"The team still has to learn how to control the ball in attack. We need to be more patient," the South African said. "In the last two minutes of a game we are leading we can't miss a kick-off and give the ball straight back to the opposition. These are small areas of experience that we will learn. We learn a lot from this defeat."