Ireland 20 England Counties 17:A late surge from the visitors could not deny the Irish amateurs at Donnybrook last night. Following an earlier England penalty miss, Ireland went over for the first try on six minutes.

The hosts had mauled the ball from a lineout inside the 22 with hooker Matthew Crockett emerging to score in the left-hand corner.

Shannon's Andrew Thompson slotted over the conversion, but an Irish infringement let Neil Hallett reduce the arrears with a penalty on 11 minutes.

England applied some good pressure after with Mark Bedworth spilling 10 metres short of the line on 21 minutes.

Against the run of play, Ireland extended their lead with Thompson bringing Ireland into double figures with a penalty in the second minute of injury-time. Thompson slotted over his third kick six minutes after the restart.

Ireland pulled further ahead with Clontarf's Niall O'Brien charging down a Mark Sweeney clearance to score in the corner. Thompson converted.

Chris Malherbe's momentum on 67 minutes took him over on the right, and Mark Bedworth scored under the posts with a minute remaining.

IRELAND: R McCarter; N O'Brien, K Hartigan, G Telford, C Healy; A Thompson, F O'Loughlin; D O'Connell, M Crockett, S Shawe; M O'Connell, A Maher; P Malone, C Hartigan, D Quinlan. Replacements: A Finn for K Hartigan (22 mins), K Corrigan for Crockett, S Crawford for M O'Connell (both 56 mins), F Cogan for C Hartigan, S Nolan for D O'Connell (both 62 mins), M Bruce for O'Loughlin, B Keeshan for Thompson (both 73 mins).

ENGLAND COUNTIES: N Hallett; A Bressington, C Malherbe, M Bedworth, M Sweeney; M Leek, G Barr; D McCormack, L Wordley, W Reed; R Snowball, J Winterbottom; M Blakeburn, N Spence, T Hayman. Replacements: D Allen for Spence (57 mins), J Tideswell for Reed (59 mins), B Armitage for Sweeney (62 mins), T Doran for Wordley (69 mins), T Roberts for Leek (78 mins), C Aikman for Barr (79 mins), M Owen for Haymen (80 mins).

Referee: N Patterson (SRU).