Irish survive French onslaught

Ireland U21 13

France U21 12

Two tries from Ulsterman Tommy Bowe gave Ireland Under-21s victory over their

French counterparts at Musgrave Park, Cork last night.

The Queen’s University full-back scored either side of half-time to recover

from a 7-0 lead the French had built thanks to a 16th minute converted try from

Jean-Philippe Grandclaude.

Bowe struck in first-half injury time with a try in the right corner to leave

the interval score at 5-7 and followed it up with an intercepted breakway try

nine minutes after the restart.

Michael Rainey sent over a 62nd minute penalty to extend the lead and the

French initially failed to conjure up a response, fly-half Benoit Baby missing

two second-half penalties.

There were some jitters, however, when replacement Pierre Garcia crashed over in injury-time to send the scores to 13-12 but Yannick Laforrgue missed the touchline conversion and the Irish survived.