Ireland U-20s 41 Italy U-20s 12:Ireland's hopes of making the championship semi-finals at the Junior World Championships were ended tonight after South Africa recorded a bonus-point victory in a victory over England in Cape Town.
Ireland had earlier fulfilled their side of the bargain in a bonus-point win over Italy, but needed a South Africa victory without a bonus point to make the semi-finals. But when flanker Sean Adendorff went over for his second try late on, the baby ’Boks had done enough to claim a semi-final clash against Argentina.
Mike Ruddock’s Ireland side now face a second meeting with England on Sunday when they meet in the fifth place semi-final at the University of Western Cape Stadium (4pm Irish time).
Having run out of steam against England in dire conditions at Stellenbosch last Friday, Ruddock rang the changes for Ireland’s final pool match in Cape Town and early scores from Peter Nelson, Chris Farrell and Aaron Conneelly got them up within one try of the bonus point after just eight minutes against the Italians.
Securing the fourth try appeared to be a mere bagatelle, especially when Ireland swept to within seven metres of the Italian line but scrumhalf, Luke McGrath, on a wrap-around, had his pass intercepted and Edoardo Padovani raced the length of the pitch to score in the corner.
Ireland’s accuracy and precision deserted them and possession became something of a liability as just five minutes later Sam Coghlan Murray turned over the ball in a tackle and when he tried to rescue the situation saw it bounce horribly allowing Italian scrumhalf Guido Calabrese to collect the loose ball and touch down to make it 21-12.
But James Rael’s try on 50 minutes copper fastened the bonus point, Luke McGrath added a fifth just three minutes later and Nelson’s second on 63 minutes ensured that Ireland could cruise to the final whistle.
“I thought our start was outstanding, we scored three tries in 10 to 15 minutes,” Ruddock said afterwards. “It was some of the best play we’ve put together, very clinical. That was the word we wanted to use before the game, to be clinical.
“Unfortunately then we lost our way, we gave an intercept pass to Italy and they took their try well. That picked Italy up and sort of spooked us and we made another mistake and Italy were right back in the game. But we adjusted a few things at half-time, made a sub or two early on in the second half to settle us down with a couple of perhaps more experienced players coming on.
“There’s a good crop coming through, particularly this year. These boys have really taken onboard what we’ve asked them to do and we’ve been pleased with the competition for places, even today we’ve made something like nine changes and the start we had showed that we hadn’t weakened the team unduly. So we’re very, very pleased with that, definitely some of these guys will go on to play international rugby I’m sure because they are very professional. But that’s for another day I guess.”
