February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
While the greater challenges against Argentina and Australia in Pool A are still to come, coach Eddie O’Sullivan was as good as his word and the Irish fielded a full-strength side with Shane Horgan starting his first game for eight months. John Hayes, who has also been out injured, came on later as a substitute and with the need for big, physical forwards later in the competition, he will surely be included from the off for Sunday’s match against Namibia.
By scoring five tries, Ireland added a bonus point to the four points for their victory, and generally did enough to overcome both the enthusiastic Romanians and a gale-force wind blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. It was by no means a perfect performance, with handling errors and missed tackles worringly numerous, but it was a case of job done at this early stage.
In fact, Romania posed more of a threat that widely predicted and fully deserved their two tries, both of which stemmed from bad Irish defending. However, on the positive side, David Humphreys justified his selection ahead of Ronan O’Gara with a commanding performance, Paul O’Connell made his mark in the second row, Girvan Dempsey was impressive at full-back and Keith Gleeson made several vital tackles.
Of probably as much importance as the victory and the acquisition of a bonus point, there were no injuries to speak of, with Brian O’Driscoll and Keith Wood taking minor knocks.
“It was difficult because the Romanians played well and because conditions were difficult,” O?Sullivan said. “With the wind blowing down the pitch, it meant at times that we had to engage in a slugging contest with a bigger team than us, which was not what we wanted to do. All told I was pretty happy to have scored five tries in the circumstances.”
The one obvious area of weakness was in the scrums, where the Irish were pushed off their own ball during the first half. However, once Hayes was brought into the action, with 25 minutes remaining, there was a marked improvement. Coming up to the interval, Ireland were in control at 26-0, with tries from Horgan and Wood and 16 points from the boot of Humphreys.
Romania soon got back into the game when they were awarded a penalty try after Humphreys had impeded Gabriel Brezoianu, but Ireland responded with tries by Denis Hickie, Victor Costello and Hickie again in the closing stages.
“I think Romania are capable of making an impact on the pool,” Wood said. “They?re well able to take the game to their opponents and really test defenses and with that comes the real risk of injury to the opposition. There is a possibility that someone getting injured may have an impact on the outcome of the pool.”
With Australia beating Argentina in the first game of the tournament, Ireland have to beat the unrated Namibians on Sunday, and then defeat Argentina the following Sunday to be assured of a quarterfinal place. A win over Romania is nothing special, but O’Sullivan’s team have taken a step in the right direction.