Irish ready to make history

WELL this is familiar, four games won and Warren Gatland’s Wales to beat to earn a place in the history books.

Yet so much about this current campaign is as removed from the 2009 Grand Slam decider as the 12,000 miles separating Cardiff from next Saturday’s venue in Wellington.

This is a Rugby World Cup, after all, on neutral ground in New Zealand and Ireland will be gunning for a first semi-final berth in tournament history.

Yesterday they duly set up their much-anticipated quarter-final against Wales with an impressive three tries to nil victory over Italy under the roof of the Otago Stadium. It was a win that made Declan Kidney’s side the first from Ireland to reach the last eight of the tournament as pool winners. If the 15-6 win over Australia 16 days ago in Auckland had pushed ajar the door to that and the prospect of a place in the ‘Six Nations’ half of the draw rather than a more perilous Tri Nations route, then this weekend’s steely effort threw it wide open.

Wales, so valiant in their narrow opening pool defeat to defending champions South Africa, rubber-stamped their spot in the quarters yesterday with a 66-0 thumping of Fiji in Hamilton to claim runners-up spot in Pool D, before Ireland overcame a first-half power struggle to put away their feisty Italian rivals in a niggly battle of wills and superior Irish skills.

It might not have been the 80-minute performance required to defeat the Wallabies at Eden Park but 20 minutes after half time was all Ireland needed to end Italy’s hopes of a first quarter-final spot and advance Irish ones.

The dangerous and fast-improving Welsh lie in wait in Wellington, with the winner facing their counterparts from the France v England encounter that same night. It is all enough to make Cian Healy believe Ireland can go all the way and bring the World Cup home later this month.

“We can [win], yeah,” Healy said. “We’re capable of it, but it’s just putting the right performances in and everything working out. There are a lot of strong teams left in that competition that you have to fight past, but our next hurdle now is Wales. That’s a huge, huge task. Inevitably you’ve got to win a Six Nations before you can win a World Cup, on this side of the [draw] the way it looks. That’s not an easy feat either, so we’ll be working hard at it.”

Backed by the vast majority of the 28,027 crowd, their every roar trapped and reverberating thanks to the permanent roof on this newly-minted South Island stadium, Ireland had seen fly-half Ronan O’Gara keep the scoreboard ticking over with three penalties to Mirco Bergamasco’s two in the opening half before the men in green switched on the afterburners at half time and rocketed into an unassailable lead with 27 unanswered second-half points thanks, in large part, to converted tries from captain Brian O’Driscoll and two from Keith Earls.

Italy head coach Nick Mallett had stoked the fires in the pre-match build-up by claiming his scrum was superior to Ireland’s but the Azzurri suffered a triple whammy before half time, conceding a free-kick and then a penalty in successive scrums before tighthead linchpin Martin Castrogiovanni limped out just before the interval with a hamstring problem.

“They talked up their scrum and we knew if we could attack them there it would break their confidence and we would be halfway there,” forwards coach Gert Smal said. “That’s exactly what we did.”

Ireland also won the battle in most other departments, with scrum-half Conor Murray vindicating his selection over Eoin Reddan by bringing his physical presence to bear on Italian talisman and No.8 Sergio Parisse.

There were also three Irish ‘tries’ not given by referee Jonathan Kaplan, one in each half from Tommy Bowe, who looked harshly treated in both instances, and a third from Rob Kearney, who looked to have been held up by the Italian defence as he attempted to touch down.

There were some anxious moments, not least when hooker Rory Best, one of Ireland’s men of the tournament so far, was forced out of the game with a shoulder problem, while Italy’s spoiling tactics and forays into illegality could have seen more players injured.

Ireland will certainly have to take it up another gear if they are to subdue a Wales side every bit as confident as Kidney’s.

Ireland, however, have earned their place in the last eight, something they neither deserved nor achieved four years ago in France, and the dream is still alive.

IRELAND: R Kearney; T Bowe, B O’Driscoll, G D’Arcy, K Earls; R O’Gara, C Murray; C Healy, R Best, M Ross; D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell; S Ferris, S O’Brien, J Heaslip.

Replacements: S Cronin for Best (53), D Ryan for O’Connell (59), J Sexton for O’Gara (67), T Court for Healy (73), D Leamy for Ferris (73), A Trimble for O’Driscoll (74), E Reddan for Murray (74).

ITALY: A Masi; T Benvenuti, G Canale, G Garcia, Mirco Bergamasco; L Orquera, F Semenzato; S Perugini, L Ghiraldini, M Castrogiovanni; Q Geldenhuys, C van Zyl; A Zanni, Mauro Bergamasco, S Parisse.

Replacements: A Lo Cicero for Castrogiovanni (37), R Bocchino for Orquera (41), P Derbyshire for Ma Bergamasco (49), E Gori for Semenzato (57), M Bortolami for Van Zyl (61), F Ongaro for Ghiraldini (67), L McLean for Parisse (77 — blood)

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa).