Reporter: Damien Burke
Copyright: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
On the 9th of March, fresh off their back-to-back victories, Ireland faced England in Twickenham stadium. What many expected to be a routine win rapidly turned to shock and crushing disappointment at the blow of the final whistle.
The game started off and Ireland piled on the pressure in the early moments and had already gotten a penalty and Crowley converted it in the third minute, but England responded even better when Lowe miss hit a kick and Lawrence went on to score a try a minute later to put them up by 2, luckily for Ireland the conversion was missed to keep it at two points down. After 16 minutes England won and scored a penalty with Ford slotting it home nicely. Ireland got three penalties of their own to make it 12-8 in favor of Ireland at half time.
Initially, all signs pointed to a strong Irish side. Andy Farrell only made one change to the lineup that beat Wales in the previous round, with Hugo Keenen recovering from his injury to come back in at full back instead of Frawley. On the contrary, England manager Stephen William Borthwick made six changes to the lineup that had lost to Scotland in the previous round. It was clear that England were coming in fighting.
By the second half, Ireland had piled the pressure on and been rewarded after 3 minutes with a well worked try finished off by James Lowe. Crowley couldn’t score this time, so it remained at 17-8 after 43 minutes. England responded well with a second try for them scored by Furbank after another well worked move and brought it back 13-17. With Peter O’Mahoney getting yellow-carded England took full advantage of it and got their third try with Earl getting over the try line on the 60th minute mark.
Marcus Smith smoothly converted the conversion to leave it at 20-17 going into the final few minutes. But Ireland came back, and James Lowe got his second try to put Ireland up by 2 with 8 minutes to go. Crowley missed another shot to leave a shaky scoreline for the last few seconds. Then, shock and disbelief. England vaulted into high-gear, and with an advantage Marcus Smith got a drop kick to win the game for England with just seconds to go.
Overall, a disappointing result and performance from Ireland with Defense Coach saying it was a “poor display”. Ireland’s Grand Slam dreams may have been crushed, but you still can take nothing away from the England outing with a much-improved performance for their third-win of the ongoing clash.
The Banagher Examiner 