Ireland too strong for Romania

Romania 3 Ireland 37

Romania 3 Ireland 37

Ireland strolled to an easy, if lacklustre, 37-3 win over Romania in today's friendly in Bucharest.

Despite an under-par performance, Ireland were always too strong for their hosts and following a poor first-half showing, they improved after thebreak to run out comfortable winners.

The visitors ran four second half tries past the Romanians, after enduring a wretched opening period during which they relied on three DavidHumphreys penalties.

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The Romanians played a conservative game but Ireland's pressure eventually began to pay off.

Anthony Foley crashed over for the first Irish try after 56 minutes and then, with 20 minutes remaining, Kevin Maggs skipped home for a wellworked score.

Trailing 23-3, Romania were wilting when Mick Galwey and Jonathan Bell claimed further tries in the closing minutes.

Humphreys added three conversions to his first half penalties and Paul Burke converted the final try.

Romania deserved more than Ionut Tofan's solitary penalty and were unfortunate not to breach Ireland's tryline either side of the half-timewhistle.

PA