Ronan Kelleher claims four of Ireland's 10 tries in American rout
Ireland's Ronan Kelleher scores a try. Picture: INPHO/Tommy Dickson
Eight debuts made, 10 tries scored. Andy Farrell will close the door on a long season with some satisfaction after this romp against admittedly weak opposition but he’ll hardly be more satisfied with his lot than Ronan Kelleher.
The Leinster hooker claimed four of those touch downs, following in the footsteps of men like Keith Wood, Brian Robinson and Denis Hickie who also managed a quartet of scores in past times.
Decent company to be keeping.
This was Kelleher’s 13th time to play for Ireland but it will only add to the clamour for him to step up as the regular claimant to that No.2 jersey. The question is how many of his young and even more inexperienced colleagues on Saturday night will join him as a regular contributor.
Robert Baloucoune, Nick Timoney and Gavin Coombes marked their debuts with tries of their own. Stuart McCloskey, Hugo Keenan and Finlay Bealham were the others to cross the chalk with Joey Carbery, first-capper Harry Byrne and Will Addison pitching in with the boot.
Add in the first appearances for James Hume, Tom O’Toole, Paul Boyle, Fineen Wycherley and Caolin Blade and there was an obvious levity and feelgood factor after a one-way affair in front of 6,000 supporters on Lansdowne Road.
The US played for almost half-an-hour with 14 men after Riekert Hattingh’s red card but it wasn’t exactly a turning point with Ireland already 47 points to the good at that point and running in scores almost on a whim.
The opening five minutes was an ode to sloppiness on both sides, understandable given the paucity of experience at this level in both ranks, but the Americans were actually the first to settle and they turned the screw for most of the first quarter.
Former Connacht academy man Luke Carty turned down two easy three-pointers for the visitors in favour of kicks to the corner. Neither came off but it showed ambition and an eagerness to make the most of a rare shot at one of the game’s big guns.
Carbery did put Ireland ahead with an eight-minute penalty on the back of a rare foray into the Havelock Square end of a ground but Ireland needed just 13 minutes midway through the first period to put the game to bed.
Baloucoune scored the first of four tries in that window, the Ulster winger marking his debut with a scintillating break off a scrum. Planned it may have been but the ability and pace to beat two covering defenders was all his own work.
Brilliant.
Kelleher and Timoney followed up with tries number two and three, both of them off the back of mauls started from five-metres out, as a big and physical US pack struggled to cope with the technique of their opposite numbers.
Kelleher claimed his second 27 minutes in with a very different type of score, Andrew Conway creating the opportunity with a grubber kick and chase and a pass to Keenan who set it on a plate for his Leinster clubmate.
With Carbery kicking all four conversions from a variety of angles, and the Eagles managing only a Carty penalty in response, it left the scoreboard at 31-3. It could have made for even uglier reading for the underdogs.
The move of the evening to that point came closer to half-time with a string of offloads and all manner of hard running and clever lines combining to take the home side right into the 22 before Caelan Doris spilled in the tackle.
Doris, incredibly, found himself denied again on the restart, this time when disposed over the try line by a Ruben de Haas last-ditch tackle after the blindside flanker had originally set up the chance by blocking the scrum-half’s clearing kick.
Kelleher was finding this scoring lark far more straightforward. His hat-trick arrived shortly after off, you guessed it, the back of another five-metre lineout and maul. A rich seam that still had more to give.
The Americans had ‘beaten’ England 26-17 in the second-half a week ago in Twickenham but Ireland continued to dominate territory and possession and it got worse for Gary Gold’s side when they went lost a man in the 54th minute.
Hattingh tackled Kelleher with the best of intentions but he was high and contact was made with the Irishman’s head. The officials took their time in making the call but the flanker eventually walked.
The punishment was dished out with a familiar paddle, Kelleher mining his fourth off another, brief, maul. The sight of the Leinster hooker being replaced minutes later could almost be filed as an act of mercy.
Still, it’s not that Ireland missed a beat. McCloskey claimed a seventh try even as Andy Farrell was busy emptying the bench and adding more and more new boys to the ranks of the senior international game.
The eight debuts had all been made by the hour, by which time Ireland had already passed the 50-point mark. Keenan, Coombes and Bealham, the last of them following Mike Baska’s consolation score after 78 minutes.
H Keenan; R Baloucoune, J Hume, S McCloskey, A Conway; J Carbery, C Casey; D Kilcoyne, R Kelleher, T O’Toole; R Baird, J Ryan; C Doris, N Timoney, G Coombes.
W Addison for Conway (HT); Harry Byrne and Paul Boyle for Carbery and Timoney (both 54): D Heffernan for Kelleher and E Byrne for Kilcoyne (both 55); F Wycherley for Baird (58): C Blade for Casey (60); F Bealham for O’Toole (73).
M Te’o; C Dyer, C Whiting, B Campbell, M Kruse; L Carty, R de Haas; D Ainu’u, J Taufete’e, P Mullen; G Peterson, N Civetta; H Germishuys, R Hattingh, C Dolan.
N Brakely for Peterson (HT); K Pifeleti for Taufete’e (48); D Waldren for Mullen (58); M Basak for de Haas (59); W Magie for Dyer (65); P Wooching for Germishuys (67); M Harmon for Ainu’u (68); W Guerra for Carty (70).
K Dickson (RFU).
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