Six Nations Championship/ England 24 Ireland 28: No less than a year ago, England and Andy Robinson can bleat all they want, but this was a deserving if desperately close-run Irish victory. Yes Ireland may have ridden their luck a tad, yes they left it desperately late, but overall, they were worthy winners of this game and an eighth Triple Crown.
True, a wounded and proud English team came out of the blocks flying and in the third quarter especially, played some of their best rugby since their opener against Wales. They even injected a bit of tempo into their game, and as even New Zealand discovered last November, it's never easy winning here.
Nonetheless, England's lack of alacrity, unexceptional rucking and continuity game, and a drift defence which, like much of their set-up, looks past its sell-by date - particularly when Gordon D'Arcy started dancing or Geordan Murphy hit the line - looked tailor-made for Saturday's Irish invasion.
You'd still like to see Ireland develop more of an off-load game. They made only five in the match overall, and only Murphy and Brian O'Driscoll consistently look to make them, while few team-mates seem primed to receive them. Curiously, even though D'Arcy took the ball on superbly, an ever more confident Murphy hit the line well and Shane Horgan was the game's most opportunistic back, there is potentially so much more to come from this backline.
But their rucking and continuity game is sharper than England's, and when they generated tempo, notably in a 10-phase attack from their own half which culminated in O'Driscoll passing too high for D'Arcy, they actually hit far loftier heights.
Ultimately, Ireland had the greater collective daring and character. There were, again, a host of fine individual performances, none better than another phenomenal effort from Denis Leamy. He augmented his ball-carrying with a mountainous workload, typical of the pack and the backrow especially in effecting a host of turnovers or slowing down England's recycling. And Paul O'Connell's sheer presence was again immense.
In the end, Ireland achieved their highest ever score against England. With first use of the wind, they led by three points at the break, but might conceivably have scored another two tries, not to mention a couple of penalties and a conversion missed by Ronan O'Gara, and indeed, turning down a near certain three-pointer when Peter Stringer tapped a penalty inside the English 22.
All of England's first 11 points emanated from Ireland failing to deal with Andy Goode's hanging restarts, O'Connell misjudging two, but anything in the air was difficult on a capricious day at Twickenham, as was also evidenced by the returns of five out of eight by Goode and O'Gara.
It put Ireland immediately on the back foot when Jamie Noon straightened through an outnumbered, drifting defence for the opening try but Ireland were soon grateful for the first signs of England's foolhardy decision to play Ben Cohen at fullback. Cohen compounded his slip when failing to gather O'Driscoll's wicked grubber, and dallied fatefully when he could have prevented Horgan from kicking on to score cleverly, even if the ball touched the line.
England having been kept in the game by Ireland's own goals, they suddenly unleashed more of an off-loading, quicker recycling game into the wind, and when Malcolm O'Kelly was drawn in by Joe Worsley's decoy inside run, it left a gap for Steve Borthwick to score untouched with a straight line off Goode's skip pass.
England cranked up the scrum pressure and Swing Low echoed around Twickers.
Cue David Wallace with an extraordinary burst of leg pumping in contact and then into the wide open spaces. Amid the ebb and flow of psychic energy there can't have been many bigger moments. At the time of need, what kind of mental lift did it give his team-mates and the ever more vocal Irish crowd?
Helped by Nigel Owens wrongly decreeing that the unfortunate Cohen had put his foot infield before taking a quick throw to himself off a typically accurate kick to the corner by O'Gara, England lazily went through a routine long throw from Lee Mears to Lewis Moody, in complete isolation as Goode and the centres stood on their heels. Credit, in spades, to Leamy also and what looked like the clever homework of Niall O'Donovan, for the Munster number eight, standing in at scrumhalf, was well primed for the throw, alertly and athletically palming the ball away from Moody and gathering to touch down adroitly with his big bear-like hands. Now the Irish were in full song again.
England, with more impact potential on the bench, unloaded the old guard.
Steve Thompson upped the temperatures in the frontrow, Jerry Flannery twice taking exception to some of his adversary's darker frontrow arts. "That's the second time you fat c***," Flannery could be heard to shout over the nearby referee's microphone.
Matt Dawson upped the ante with a trademark quick tap, and a trademark barge into Simon Easterby. As O'Sullivan said if Ireland had lost because of that decision, it would have been cruelly unjust. It seemed likely to be the case when Goode pushed the ensuing penalty home and another one against Johnny O'Connor for coming in from the side. But in the endgame Ireland remained the more daring side, save for long, percentage restarts by O'Gara.
Easterby, after his 10 minutes in purgatory, returned to pounce for the turnover. Off the scrum, O'Gara chipped the advancing white line of defenders from inside his 22 for O'Driscoll to sprint, gather and release Horgan. Brilliantly hauled down by Moody, O'Gara and Easterby were there to effect the recycle.
O'Driscoll ran into traffic, all of it offside, but Stringer had the wit to take out three rushing defenders and there possibly isn't a winger in the world who could have used his 6ft 4ins frame to take Moody's tackle from a standing start and reach out one-handed for the line.
Typically cool as a breeze in the pressure cooker atmosphere, O'Gara nailed the remarkable touchline conversion. Easterby took Ireland's best gather off a restart all day. O'Gara prematurely kicked out on the full, Stringer had his blocked by Moody before O'Gara scuffled it over the touchline. An ungainly final act to an extraordinary day and unforgettable climax.
Being Irish in London was about to get a whole lot better.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 2 mins: Noon try 5-0; 8: Horgan try 5-5; 14: O'Gara pen 5-8; 32: O'Gara pen 5-11; 34: Goode pen 8-11; (half-time 8-11); 43: O'Gara pen 8-14; 44: Goode pen 11-14; 52: Borthwick try, Goode con 18-14; 58: Leamy try, O'Gara con 18-21; 69: Goode pen 21-21; 75: Goode pen 24-21; 79: Horgan try, O'Gara con 24-28.
ENGLAND: T Voyce (Wasps); M Cueto (Sale), J Noon (Newcastle), S Abbott (Wasps), B Cohen (Northampton); A Goode (Leicester), H Ellis (Leicester); A Sheridan (Sale), L Mears (Bath), J White (Leicester), S Borthwick (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), J Worsley (Wasps), L Moody (Leicester), M Corry (Leicester). Replacements: M Tindall (Gloucester) for Noon (28-40 mins and half-time), S Thompson (Northampton) for Mears, D Grewcock (Bath) for Shaw (both 63 mins), M Dawson (Wasps) for Ellis (67 mins), P Freshwater (Perpignan) for Sheridan (70 mins), D Walder (Newcastle) for Goode (78 mins). Sinbinned: Shaw (32-42 mins).
IRELAND: G Murphy (Leicester); S Horgan (Leinster), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), G D'Arcy (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster); R O'Gara (Munster), P Stringer (Munster); M Horan (Munster), J Flannery (Munster), J Hayes (Munster), M O'Kelly (Leinster), P O'Connell (Munster), S Easterby (Llanelli), D Wallace (Munster), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: J O'Connor (Wasps) for Wallace (17-26 mins) and for Leamy (71 mins), D O'Callaghan (Munster) for O'Kelly (54 mins), G Dempsey (Leinster) for Trimble (66 mins). Sinbinned: Easterby (68-78 mins).
Referee: N Whitehouse (Wales).
