Ireland stumble on to the plane

Ireland 9 England 20:A fourth consecutive defeat for Ireland, another below par performance and the probability of another serious injury as David Wallace appeared to severely damage his knee. Jamie Heaslip and Cian Healy also limped from the fray on an afternoon to forget for the home side.

Ireland struggled to cope with the English physicality, particular at the breakdown and the primary collisions. The home side never managed the quick ball they craved and as a result the backline was rarely able to breach the gain-line and again much of the momentum was lateral, veering towards the touchline.

England shut down their opponents primary ball carriers, counter-rucked aggressively and in the latter respect were given latitude by referee Nigel Owens. Ireland had far too many turnovers, at lineout and in terms of spilling possession.

The balance of the backrow suffered in losing Wallace and Heaslip despite an honest shift from Donnacha Ryan and Denis Leamy. The home side elected to go to the corner on several occasions, decisions that were undermined by basic mistakes.

It is the manner of the performance that will once again concern Ireland coach Declan Kidney as much as a fourth consecutive defeat. England captain Mike Tindall and Manu Tuilagi easily coped with Ireland’s midfield attacking gambits and even when the home side did manage to get the ball into the wider channels they either kicked away possession or found a posse of Englishmen in their path.

It was a relief when the kindergarten pre-match hoopla was finally over. Unlike last week it was the visitors who dominated territorially and in terms of possession in the opening throes of the contest, retaining the ball for the first two and a half minutes.

Their attacking forays were largely orthodox and Ireland defended comfortably until the fourth minute when Keith Earls missed a straight up tackle on Manu Tuilagi, allowing the young Samoan centre scamper over for a try, complete with one-handed salute. Wilkinson kicked the conversion.

English fragility at the restart gave Ireland first field position and then a penalty, which was kicked to the corner but unfortunately Donncha O’Callaghan lost possession of the ball on the way down. As a moment it encapsulated to some degree Ireland’s error-rate in the first half.

Several times they established decent continuity, only for errors to bring that momentum to a grinding halt. Some of this was attributable to English physicality and aggression in the tackle, but it doesn’t fully explain why it extended to elements of the home side’s set-pieces where they turned over ball from lineouts. The scrum was largely positive apart from conceding one penalty; 30 seconds after they had shunted England off their own ball.

A horrendous looking knee/ankle injury to Wallace when he got his studs caught in the turf as he was hit by Tuilagi and the departure of Heaslip soon after represented a massive blow. In the case of Wallace, it may have cost him his place on the plane to New Zealand. Add Seán O’Brien and Heaslip into the mix and it means all three of Ireland’s first choice backrow are currently injured.

The English were happy to concede penalties and rucks and Nigel Owens was content to give them about three final warnings without ever brandishing a yellow card. Ireland’s lack of precision was proving frustrating and they scuppered several decent attacking platforms.

The remainder of the half belong to the respective boots of Wilkinson and Ronan O’Gara, who posted two and three penalties respectively to leave the visitors 13-9 ahead. Ireland survived another scare when Geordan Murphy got back to brilliantly cut down Tuilagi after the English centre had latched onto a Jerry Flannery overthrow at a lineout on the English 22 and raced 70 metres.

Ireland’s clearing out at ruck time wasn’t as good as it should have been and it left Eoin Reddan vulnerable. On a more positive note, Andrew Trimble ran strongly, Healy was centrally involved in most things, Murphy ran intelligent lines and Earls demonstrated some nice feet, if not the peripheral vision to link with those outside.

There was a great deal of perspiration from the home side but again, they crabbed sideways in attack, struggled to get over the gain-line, found ball carriers isolated and then had to commit far too many players to try and hang onto possession. It was all too easy for England who simply committed less numbers to the breakdown and fanned out.

English transgressions at rucks were finally penalised one minute after the re-start when Chris Ashton was sent to the bin but O’Gara’s penalty came back off a post.

Despite being down a player it was England who capitalised, trundling forward through a series of rucks after kicking a penalty to touch. Sweeping back to the short side, they discovered a dog-leg in the Irish defence and Tindall put in a beautifully weighted grubber-kick for Delon Armitage to score. Wilkinson kicked a fine touchline conversion and suddenly Ireland were 11 points adrift.

Indiscipline and crass mistakes continued to undermine Irish ambition and the back play was predictable and reliant on individual flair; in mitigation though the ball coming from the Irish pack was laboured to put it politely. Ireland continued to apply themselves but it was individual rather than the collective upon which they relied.

Earls kicked away possession on a couple of occasions when he might have made better decisions but in the latter respect he was not alone in taking questionable options. The match descended into a morass of errors as the rain cascaded down and both coaches emptied their benches.

Ireland might have managed a late try but Leamy took contact rather than recognising the overlap 10 metres from the English line. It would though have been a bit of window dressing on the scoreboard given that it came minutes from the end of the match.

England travel to New Zealand with the confidence boost of a first victory at the Aviva stadium: for Ireland this pre-World Cup series has unearthed far more questions than answers. It’s a big concern when coupled with the injury problems and some players still struggling for match fitness and form.

Scoring sequence

5 mins: Tuilagi try, Wilkinson conversion, 0-7; 9: O'Gara penalty, 3-7; 13: Wilkinson penalty, 3-10; 21: O'Gara penalty, 6-10; 26: Wilkinson penalty, 6-13; 35: O'Gara penalty, 9-13. Half-time: 9-13. 45: Armitage try, Wilkinson conversion, 9-20.

Ireland:Geordan Murphy; Tommy Bowe, Keith Earls, Gordon D'Arcy, Andrew Trimble; Ronan O'Gara, Eoin Reddan; Cian Healy, Jerry Flannery, Mike Ross; Donncha O'Callaghan, Paul O'Connell (capt); Stephen Ferris, David Wallace, Jamie Heaslip. Replacements: D Leamy for Wallace 21 mins; D Ryan for Heaslip 34 mins; R Best for Flannery 49 mins; J Sexton for O'Gara 61 mins; C Murray for Reddan 61 mins; T Court for Healy 70 mins; F McFadden for Trimble 71 mins.

England:Ben Foden; Chris Ashton, Manu Tuilagi, Mike Tindall (capt), Mark Cueto; Jonny Wilkinson, Richard Wigglesworth; Andrew Sheridan, Steve Thompson, Dan Cole; Louis Deacon, Courtney Lawes; Tom Croft, James Haskell, H Fourie. Replacements: D Armitage for Cueto 21 mins; Tom Palmer for Fourie 21 mins; D Hartley for Thompson 51 mins; M Stevens for Sheridan 54 mins; S Shaw for Deacon 62 mins; T Flood for Tindal 74 mins.

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales).

Yellow card:Chris Ashton (England)