Tadhg Furlong was also taken off as a precaution for a hamstring tightness in the opening minutes of the game.

"It's probably come at a bit of a cost. Robbie's shoulder is very sore so we'll get that scanned tomorrow and we'll have more information after that," said Joe Schmidt on TV3.

"There's always a chance (he could miss the rest of the championship) because he's in a degree of discomfort. He's a lot more comfortable now so until we get the scan it's difficult to make any sort of assessment. We'll put it on the backburner and cross our fingers."

On Furlong, Schmidt added: "Tadhg is OK. It (taking him off) was precautionary.

"He was tight in the hamstring, he hadn't any problem during the week so we're hopeful that that won't be anything that's in the way of him training a bit by Thursday next week and then getting into a full week of preparation for Wales the following week.

"We're hopeful that those two guys are OK. Apart from that we're reasonably happy, guys got a bit of a head out that haven't had a lot of gametime and some of the guys who didn't play a lot last week, the likes of Jack McGrath, really stood out today.

"So did Andrew Porter. It was the plan to give Andrew a good slice of the game anyway so it (Furlong's injury) just accelerated that."

While there was a "real level of frustration" at the three tries conceded to Italy in the second-half, Schmidt's focus was on the attrition to his squad.

He highlighted the fact that Bundee Aki and Chris Farrell have played together against Argentina last November.

"We've had a fair bit of attrition in the back row already, a little bit in the midfield, missing Garry Ringrose on top of Robbie Henshaw, which might start to weight heavy on us."