Ireland started their World Cup warm-up games with a 29-10 victory over Italy at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The victory may have come at a cost however as fly-half Joey Carbery left the field after 50 minutes with a leg injury which has cast doubt over his availability at the World Cup.
Both teams were rusty and although Ireland threatened
early on it was the visitors who got of the scoreboard first thanks to a Maxime
Mbanda try. However, Carlo Canna couldn’t add the extras.
Ireland came straight back at the Italians
and within five minutes they were ahead as Carbery was slipped through five
metres out by Chris Farell and touched down. He converted his own try to put
the hosts 7-5 up after 18 minutes.
Only three minutes later and Canna made up
for his missed kick by latching onto an Edoardo Padovani grubber kick and scoring
a try, but once again he couldn’t convert.
With the clock ticking towards the
half-hour mark Ireland regained their lead courtesy of a fine backs move which
was finished off in the corner by winger Dave Kearney. Carbery was spot on with
the kick to make it 14-10.
The hosts ended the half in style as a period of pressure led to Jordan Larmour popping the ball to Andrew Conway in the right corner to score his side’s third try. Carbery failed to convert leaving it at 19-10 at half-time.
Ireland took up where they left off at the
start of the second-half as Jordie Murphy powered over to push them further
ahead, again the conversion was missed by Carbery.
However, following Carbery’s injury on 50
minutes the game lost its intensity with substitute scrum-half Kieran Marmion
grabbing the only score in the final quarter after charging down a kick. The
game peated out from there to hand Ireland a 29-10 win.
Ireland will hope to continue their winning
ways when they head to Twickenham in two weeks’ time to face England before a
double-header against current Six Nations Grand Slam winners Wales.
Ireland Player Ratings:
Jordan Larmour (6), Dave Kearney(7), Garry
Ringrose(7), Chris Farrell(7), Andrew Conway(8), Joey Carbery (8), Luke McGrath(7);
Jack McGrath (6), Rob Herring(5), Andrew Porter (6), Jean Kleyn (6), Devin
Toner (7), Rhys Ruddock (capt) (7), Tommy O’Donnell (6), Jordi Murphy (7)
Replacements: Niall Scannell (6), Cian Healy (5), John Ryan (6), Iain Henderson (5), Tadgh Beirne (6), Kieran Marmion (7), Jack Carty (6), Mike Haley (4).
