Ireland 14 England 13:Ireland will reflect on this 80 minutes at Croke Park grateful for several outstanding individual performances but primarily for the fact that England once again displayed such gross indiscipline that ultimately proved their undoing.
Prop Phil Vickery and replacement scrumhalf Danny Care both received yellow cards, the first on the basis of accumulated team transgressions, the second for a stupid shoulder in the back of Irish prop Marcus Horan, off the ball. During the time the English were down to 14 men – those two sin bins take the total in England’s last four matches to a staggering 10 – Ireland managed eight points and that proved decisive.
England coach Martin Johnson should be livid because those indiscretions plus another ridiculously high penalty count effectively cost the visitors the match. His Ireland counterpart Declan Kidney will be grateful to have escaped on a day when Ireland huffed and puffed but lacked the vision to get around a resolute English defence. Kick and chase and lumbering carries around the fringes were never going to discommode England unduly unless the latter was done at pace.
It was largely missing all evening.
Kidney will be satisfied with a hard working display from a pack in which John Hayes, Paul O’Connell and Stephen Ferris were superb while behind the scrum Tomas O’Leary and Tommy Bowe excelled. One player though pulled Ireland through this game and that was captain Brian O’Driscoll. Every facet of his game, attack and defence, was outstanding – he even managed a drop goal – and it was his try that ultimately saw his side snaffle the win.
It should have been an easier passage but Ronan O’Gara could only manage two place kicks from six attempts and that kept England within touching distance. If Ireland are to progress they’ll need to introduce more wide ranging patterns, play the game at a higher tempo, introduce more offloads and have the courage to attack teams out wide. For now they'll be content that they showed the bottle to hang in there: just.
The home side’s first half performance bespoke a team who were trying not to lose a match rather than harbouring the conviction and courage to go and win it by imposing cohesive patterns and using the full extent of the pitch.
The home side were too one dimensional, trying to batter their way round the fringes which simply played into the hands of England’s physicality. All the visitors had to do was remained disciplined, which they did after a fashion; although they still conceded seven penalties in the opening 40 minutes.
Fortunately for England, O’Gara’s place-kicking lacked his customary assurance, missing two of three opportunities, a poor return for a great deal of effort. Ireland’s work ethic couldn’t be faulted but too often the pack clustered in pods around rucks, lacking the dynamism to break the initial line. They didn’t or perhaps couldn’t get an offloading game going so therefore couldn’t generate the go forward ball that would have given the backs front foot possession. Tomas O’Leary was forced to dig out possession or else box kick and in the latter respect he was foot perfect, giving the chasers every chance to reclaim the ball or else turning the England back three and finding spaces and ultimately touch.
It was England who put more width on the game, more adept at getting the ball away in the tackle and while they stretched Ireland defensively at times, invariably a green shirted player came up with an excellent tackle: O’Driscoll put in a couple of thundering hits, so too Stephen Ferris and Jamie Heaslip. The Irish captain was producing a magnificent individual effort and it was his dexterous intercept that led to O’Gara’s only first half success. A stray English hand knocked the ball out of O’Connell’s grasp as he came down from a lineout in the Irish 22 and the turnover eventually culminated in the home side being penalised under the own posts.
Toby Flood kicked the penalty and England would have been delighted to go in at half-time tied at 3-3. Ireland’s start to the second half suggested that they had been told to increase the tempo of their patterns and look to mix their game a little bit more. O’Connell successfully contested the re-start, England transgressed but O’Gara’s radar was still askew.
O’Driscoll then took it upon himself to go and win the match – possibly inspired by a cheap shot late hit by Riki Flutey and then a cynical take out by Delon Armitage, both on the Irish captain – dropping a fine goal on 45 minutes and then after England’s prop Phil Vickery had been dispatched to the sin bin, on the basis that his team accumulated too many penalties, he managed the game’s pivotal score. Ireland went for a scrum and after several surges by the pack, O’Driscoll called for the ball on the short side of a ruck a couple of metres from the England line and burrowed under two defenders, demonstrating great leg strength. Still O’Gara could not manage to bisect the posts but as events would transpire his penalty on 70 minutes would prove crucial.
The reason why that was the case was because of an Armitage try after replacement outhalf Andy Goode’s clever chip through; the latter posted the conversion but England simply ran out of time, finishing an agonising one point adrift, a margin that there application deserved but definitely not any inspiration of which they were largely devoid. Only Matthew Tait’s arcing run from a clever inside pass from Flood earlier the half could be construed as imaginative.
It was an accusation that could also be levelled at Ireland, who for large periods of this game, played far too conservatively and, coupled with O’Gara’s off day with the boot, it brought them far closer to a defeat than was comfortable for players, management and supporters.
Scoring sequence:
27 mins: O’Gara penalty, 3-0; 38: Flood penalty, 3-3. Half-time: 3-3. 45: O’Driscoll drop goal, 6-3; 56: O’Driscoll try, 11-3; 65: Armitage penalty, 11-6; 70: O’Gara penalty, 14-6; 78: Armitage try, Goode conversion, 14-13.
Ireland: R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), P Wallace (Ulster), L Fitzgerald (Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster), T O'Leary (Munster); M Horan (Munster), J Flannery (Munster), J Hayes (Munster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster); S Ferris (Ulster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: P Stringer (Munster) for O'Leary 65 mins; D Leamy (Munster) for Heaslip 68 mins; R Best (Ulster) for Flannery 68 mins.
England: D Armitage (London Irish); P Sackey (London Wasps), M Tindall (Gloucester), R Flutey (London Wasps), M Cueto (Sale Sharks); T Flood (Leicester Tigers), H Ellis (Leicester Tigers); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (London Wasps); S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), N Kennedy (London Irish); J Haskell (London Wasps), J Worsley (London Wasps), N Easter (Harlequins). Replacements: J White (Leicester Tigers) for Haskell 54 mins; D Care (Harlequins) for Ellis 56 mins; Vickery for White 65 mins; A Goode (Brive) for Flood 65 mins; D Hartley (Northampton) for Mears 65 mins; T Croft (Leicester Tigers) for Kennedy 68 mins; White for Sheridan 75 mins; L Narraway (Gloucester) for Easter 75 mins.
Referee: C Joubert (South Africa).
Sin bin: P Vickery (England) 54 mins; D Care (England) 69 mins.
