Romania’s youngsters may pack a punch

IRISH coach Eddie O’Sullivan, quite understandably, fears the strength of the Romanian pack at Lansdowne Road tomorrow but he might also be well advised to keep a watchful eye on a couple of highly promising young backs who played key roles in last week’s late, late 22-20 victory over Canada in Bucharest.

Nineteen-year-old full-back Catalin Fercu scored their first try and by all accounts looked a polished operator while Ionut Domofte, 20, also settled in well at out-half. It was the first time the countries had met outside of the World Cup and on those two previous occasions, Canada had emerged clear winners. To prevail on this occasion, “The Oaks” relied on an 80th minute try by Pau flanker Alexandru Manta converted by Dan Vlad.

The match took placed in freezing temperatures and hopefully that will be far from the case when the game kicks off tomorrow at the unusual time of 12.30pm Romanian coach Daniel Sandemans announced yesterday that Petre Mitu of Tarbes would take over at scrum-half from Lucian Sirlu.