Ireland could not manage a fifth successive victory over England but still produced a wonderfully entertaining performance, full of character and skill yesterday at Banbury. The visitors will rue conceding a couple of soft tries but can still take great heart from a superb display against a gargantuan England team.
Out-half Jeremy Staunton was outstanding, producing a series of scintillating breaks that should have led to tries. The Garryowen man demonstrated his footballing ability and drew warm recognition from the home crowd. The pack produced a storming second-half display in which they eclipsed their vaunted rivals, none more conspicuous than openside Andrew Hughes.
Ireland, despite playing with a strong breeze, soon found themselves under pressure. Powerful thrusts by Steve Borthwick and Alex Sanderson, following a lineout inside the Irish 22 took play to within metres of the line before Irish flanker Andrew Hughes was penalised for offside. Goode posted the easy penalty.
The match exploded into life for the wrong reasons on five minutes when 20 players were involved in a brawl. As a result three players, Ireland's Niall Treston and Chris McCarey and England scrum-half James Grindal were dispatched to the sin-bin for 10 minutes. Despite a numerical disadvantage it was the visitors that wrested control through the shrewd punting of Jeremy Staunton.
The Irish out-half levelled matters on 11 minutes with a close range penalty but failed from 20 metres soon after as Ireland applied pressure, counter-attacking cleverly. Openside Andrew Hughes worked tirelessly to secure loose ball as the Irish pack refused to buckle in the physical mismatch up front. Ireland conceded a soft try three minutes before the interval, missed first-time tackles allowed right wing Rob Thirlby to score under the posts. Goode converted.
Staunton dropped a fine goal in first-half injury time and started the second half with an imperious break that saw him grounded inches short of the England line. In the next three minutes Ireland three times came close to scoring.
Ireland's failure to capitalise seemed to galvanise England and they swept downfield scoring two unconverted tries in quick succession through full back Sean Marsden and second row Andrew Sheridan. The Irish responded magnificently with a superb try from left wing Simon Keogh and laid siege to the English line for 10 minutes but were denied through excellent defence. Ireland deserved better.
England Students defeated Irish Universities 35-14 at Newbury yesterday.
ENGLAND U-21: S Marsden; R Thirlby, J Noon, A Higgins, M Stephenson; A Goode, J Grindal; M Ward, M Cairns, J Dawson, A Sheridan, S Borthwick, A Eustace, A Balding, A Sanderson (capt). Replacements: T May for Noon (63 mins); P Short for Eustace (73 mins); Mark Lock for Cairns (77 mins); B Stankovitch for Balding (77 mins).
IRELAND U-21: G Brady (Ballina); J Norton (St Mary's College), P Wallace (UCD), S Moore (UCD, capt), S Keogh (Old Belvedere); J Staunton (Garryowen), K Campbell (London Irish); N Foxe (St Mary's College), A Flavin (London Irish), N Treston (Blackrock College); D O'Callaghan (Cork Constitution), P O'Connell (Young Munster); C McCarey (Ballymena), D Dillon (UCD), A Hughes (Dungannon ). REPLACEMENTS: A Kearney (UCD) for Dillon 63 mins; A O'Brien (UCD) for Foxe 63 mins; K Lewis (DU) for Brady 63 mins, M Lawlor (Shannon) for Moore 73 mins.
Referee: J Jutge (France).
