Green shoots of recovery

Canada 14 Ireland 40

But when Les Kiss hands over the international reins to Joe Schmidt in July — officially, at least — the incoming Ireland coach will inherit a happy camp and an ambitious crop of young players.

A 40-14 victory over Canada will never make up for the Six Nations debacle but the manner of this win — digging in and then sprinting away during an impressive second half dismantling of the Canadians — pleased the interim coach and will provide Schmidt with an extensive dossier of the players available to him as he begins his tenure.

“It was a tough year,” Kiss said afterwards. “There were some moments where it looked like it could have spring-boarded and gone on in some places. 60-0 some 12 months ago certainly hung there for a while. We went into the November series, got a great result against Argentina, got off to a great start against Wales there when the boys did a fantastic job of pulling themselves together.

“A draw against France and then a defeat was not how we wanted to end things, so there was heavy disappointment about those results.

“But all we could deal with was the here and now and these guys had a mission, they knew the purpose. Look, we made it clear to them they really had to stand up, that if they wanted to be part of the future, if we needed to make a statement about Irish rugby, finish this off. They did do that and it was fantastic.”

Fergus McFadden’s hat-trick — half the haul of six Irish tries — was the obvious standout from a game watched by a record attendance for a rugby game on Canadian soil (20,396) but it was one of the other try scorers, Tommy O’Donnell, who made one of the biggest statements of intent.

With just over 10 minutes left to play, the Munster flanker capped off his first start in the green of Ireland when he seized on a loose ball and rushed through Canadian try scorer Tyler Ardron’s attempted tackle to touch down under the posts.

“It felt good,” O’Donnell said when asked about the score which all but ensured victory for Ireland, replacement out half Paddy Jackson’s conversion making it 33-14.

“I just broke free. It was a bouncing ball and I just scooped it and just went for it, pinned the ears back and went. I was delighted with it, to finish off with a bit of a try and the way it happened was great in my first start.”

This was the sixth meeting between the countries and the fifth victory for Ireland. But Canada managed to make it slightly difficult until the game was blown wide open by two tries inside three second-half minutes. They even took an early lead before Andrew Trimble marked his 50th cap with a 10th-minute try after good work from out-half Ian Madigan and eventual man of the match McFadden.

Canadian winger James Pritchard broke the record for his nation’s all-time highest scorer when he made it 9-7 with his third successful penalty attempt after 25 minutes and then McFadden’s first try had Ireland back in front just before the half hour, leaving it 12-9 at the break.

“We’ve never come across a crowd like this in Canada,” said a disappointed Pritchard.

“We’ve played overseas in places like Ireland and those teams are used to those sorts of crowds. If you go into that dressing room you will see how devastated everybody in there is. We wanted to go out and show that rugby in Canada has come a long way and I think everyone in there just felt that we’ve let the 20,000 people down tonight.”

When flanker Tyler Ardron made it 14-12 to the hosts not long after the restart, their tails were up and they continued to test the Irish backs with sharp runs by the likes of Taylor Paris and Harry Jones. But with 55 minutes played, Ireland took over as Darren Cave and then McFadden scored tries in quick succession, both converted by Madigan to open up a 12-point lead.

O’Donnell added that fifth Irish try with 10 minutes to go and with time elapsed, McFadden’s third try was a cruel twist of the knife.

“I’ve loved every minute of (the tour),” said captain Peter O’Mahony. “To captain your country is a huge honour and to get two wins… I sound like a broken record but it really was all about that. We’ve had a great time over here, the hospitality has been second to none, we’ve bonded really well as a young squad, we got on like a house on fire and that came into our game today.”

Scorers for Canada: Try, T Ardron (1). Pens, Pritchard (3)

Scorers for Ireland: Tries, F McFadden (3), Trimble (1), Cave (1) T O’Donnell (1). Conv, Madigan (3) Jackson (2).

CANADA: C Braid (P Parfrey, 62); J Pritchard, C Hearn, H Jones, T Paris; N Hirayama, P Mack (S White, 56); H Buydens (D Woolridge, 73), R Barkwill (R Hamilton, 54), J Marshall (A Tiedemann, 73); J Sinclair, T Hotson (J Phelan, 70); T Ardron, J Moonlight (N Dala, 62), A Carpenter (capt).

IRELAND: F Jones; F McFadden, D Cave (R Henshaw, 73), J Downey, A Trimble; I Madigan (P Jackson, 60), I Boss (P Marshall, 56); T Court (D Kilcoyne, 66), R Strauss (S Cronin, 66), M Ross (D Fitzpatrick, 61); D Tuohy (M McCarthy, 72), D Toner; K McLaughlin, T O’Donnell, P O’Mahony (capt).

Referee: Leighton Hodges (WRU)

Att: 20,396.