Italy regain possession!

Joey Carbery's looped pass out to the left is plucked out of the air by Luca Morisi.

Ref Nigel Owens has called a time out and is having a chat with the Italians asking why play has stopped.

Italy scrum anyway.

Italy are offside once again - another pen.

No kick, obvs, so line-out o'clock.

That was a bit poor from Jack Porter who tried to dive over bodies rather than distribute.

They have the scrum about five metres out.

Try still coming...

Italy cannot get possession.

It's wave after wave of Ireland attacks - phase 96 or something so far...

They are at the Italy 22. A try is one the cards...

Anyway, it's an Irish scrum just inside their own half.

Luke McGrath has been swift with his distribution so far - Italy haven't quite got to grips with the pace so far.

You know what?

It was difficult to tell where the tryline was for Beirne's try because there are so many lines on this US football pitch.

Imagine if they did that to Wembley?!!

Garry Ringrose does an impression of a skipping stone as he approaches the line, but loses the ball at the all important moment.

Darnit!

Great start by Schmidt's young 'uns though.

Great hands from the Irish on the left. Joey Carbery, starting his fourth international, gets an early touch...

Hang on...chance!!!

Italy get us under way - and Ireland blast forward!

Ireland: Larmour; Conway, Ringrose, Aki, Stockdale; Carbery, L McGrath; J McGrath, Scannell, Porter, Beirne, Roux, Ruddock (capt), van der Flier, Conan

Replacements: Cronin, Kilcoyne, Bealham, Toner, Murphy, Cooney, Byrne, Addison

Italy: Sperandio; Bellini, Campagnaro (capt), Morisi, Bisegni; Canna, Tebaldi; Quaglio, Bigi, Pasquali, Fuser, Biagi, Meyer, Steyn, Giammarioli

Replacements: Fabiani, Traore, Zilocchi, Lazzaroni, Ruzza, Tuivatti, Palazzani, McKinley

An American flavour to the sporting anthems - plenty of use of the triangle and synthetic-sounding drums!

BBC Radio 5 live

An illegal tackle or not, that is the question - Owen Farrell was given the benefit of the doubt after the 80 mins was up. Had SA got the pen and slotted the ball over the quotes below would have taken on a different tone...

England head coach Eddie Jones said: "I was just really pleased for the players. Today was about resilience and hanging in there when you’re probably not at your best. In the end, we probably deserved to win the game and I would have been disappointed if we didn’t."

Was Farrell playing with fire? “I don’t think so. The bloke ran at him hard and he hit him around the chest which is legal. I never adjudicate on what the TMO does, we accept the decision 100%.

"It was 8-6 at half time and we only had 20% possession and territory so we did well to stay in the game. We had the most positive mindset of both changing rooms because we were still in it, but they gave everything and didn’t have a lead to show for it.”

Do England have a plan for New Zealand? “100%. The coaches spent yesterday afternoon going through the All Blacks and it is exciting. We think we have an opportunity."

Match report here.

It's a glorious day in Chicago - wouldn't say Soldier Field is rammed though.

We are about six mins from blast-the-ball-in-the-air-off.

Ireland have been making the most of their trip to Chicago with a visit to some of the city’s sports teams.

Josh van der Flier, Bundee Aki and Garry Ringrose all went behind-the-scenes at ice hockey team Chicago Blackhawks.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

And a first Test start wasn’t enough pressure for Tadhg Beirne. He nominated himself to take a half-court shot at a Chicago Bulls game.

Apparently Ireland coach Joe Schmidt is "pretty excited" about this new-look side - what he means he's keen to see how many of his emerging players can earn a place in next year's Six Nations/World Cup squad.

Full-back Jordan Larmour and lock Tadhg Beirne make their first international starts, while Ross Byrne and Will Addison are in line to make their debuts from the bench.

"It's a squad that we're pretty excited about seeing," he said.

"Those guys starting to run the show or help those who are running the show, Luke (McGrath) and Joey (Carbery), that's a really positive thing for us because inevitably you lean on the leaders that have been there and continue to play really well for us.

"If there's nowhere to lean, you have to stand up and face the breeze yourself, and hopefully that's something we see them do really well on Saturday."*

*I really don't know what he meant by that final sentence.

Former England Under-20 centre Will Addison is set to make his Ireland debut tonight. He moved to Ulster from Sale Sharks this season and there are plenty of people excited to see what he can do on the senior international stage.

Image source, Getty Images

...this is The Rugby Weekend!!!

That's what USA Rugby have labelled a triple-header of rugger fun today at Chicago's Soldier Field.

The day kicked off with USA women v New Zealand's Black Ferns (NZ won 67-6) and the last match will between the USA men's team and the Maori All Blacks.

We, at the BBC, will focus on Six Nations champs Ireland against one of their rivals Italy which kicks off in a few minutes.

We will have live text comms of that match - so press the record button for Casualty and feast your eyes on this.

BBC Two

You can enjoy/condemn Owen Farrell's juddering final hit on the highlights on BBC Two from 19:30 GMT. Or 20:00 GMT in Scotland.

We will be back with text commentary of Ireland's meeting with Italy in Chicago from just before 20:00 GMT.

See you then.

South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus:

“No matter how we lost it, we lost it – it doesn’t feel great.

“We had them under the pump the last two or three minutes, but their discipline was good. We can certainly learn from that.

“I thought we scored a nice try, we counter-attacked very well at stages. There are some positives.”

Image source, Getty Images