Ruthless Ireland cruise into World Cup quarter-final
CELEBRATION: Ireland's Garry Ringrose and Bundee Aki embrace after Ireland's fifth try at the Stade de France.
Ireland cruised into the World Cup quarter-finals with a clinical defeat of Six Nations rivals Scotland on Saturday night at Stade de France.
On the night Peter O’Mahony made his 100th appearance for Ireland, leading the team out in front of a huge travelling army of Irish supporters, Ireland ran riot to complete a bonus-point victory against the world number five Scots and set up a last-eight meeting with New Zealand back here next Saturday.
That match will be a repeat of the 2019 quarter-final when a dominant All Blacks performance ended Joe Schmidt’s tenure as head coach in brutal fashion and it will not be lost on the current Irish management, led by Andy Farrell, that his predecessor will now be plotting his World Cup exit as New Zealand’s attack coach.
There are fresh injury concerns also, Ireland having lost both wings Mack Hansen and James Lowe in the first 40 minutes. Yet there was also plenty to celebrate for the supporters who made a large proportion of the 78,459 crowd following a scintillating performance of their own to complete a perfect campaign in Pool B, their fourth victory of the tournament and 17th consecutive Test win.
Ireland scored six tries, two from Hugo Keenan, and one apiece from Lowe, Iain Henderson, Dan Sheehan and Garry Ringrose, the Scots not scoring until midway through the second half, too little too late.
Scotland had come into the game believing they could bring that winning Irish run to an end and advance themselves at Ireland’s expense but those hopes were quickly disabused, James Lowe scoring in the corner after just 63 seconds as the men in green struck off a Scottish box kick exiting from Johnny Sexton’s kick-off.
It was a perfectly executed move along the Irish line, captain Sexton passing to Garry Ringrose who moved it to Mack Hansen, roving his right wing to supply the final pass to his back-three colleague Lowe to finish a sweeping move.
Sexton missed the conversion from wide out but it did not get any better for the sorry Scots, who had their fair share of misfortune, losing both influential full-back Blair Kinghorn to a head injury on eight minutes and then captain Jamie Ritchie to injury on 18, the skipper having failed to capitalised on a spell of concerted pressure inside the Irish 22, by turning down three opportunities of points from the boot of Finn Russell and instead kicking to the corner in search of tries.
They were punished for their failure to convert, Ireland relieving the pressure via a scrum penalty. After Irish woes at lineout time in the hard-fought win over pool rivals South Africa, Farrell had brought in Dan Sheehan at hooker and Iain Henderson to lead the set-piece. It was a lineout that allowed Ireland to launch their next assault on the Scottish line, another sweeping move off the set-piece this time finished by Hugo Keenan on 25 minutes with Sexton converting. Henderson was on hand to finish from close range six minutes later, the converted try taking Ireland into 19-0 lead before Keenan brought up the try bonus point with his second of the half and his side’s fourth just before half-time, Sexton kicking the extras for a 26-0 interval lead.
The dominant performance had come at a cost, however, Ireland losing both wingers, Lowe and Hansen to injury. Lowe had received an eye injury confirmed as friendly fire from a team-mate while Hansen was removed just three minutes after returning from a Head Injury Assessment.
It forced a major backline reshuffle at the interval. Stuart McCloskey had come on for his tournament debut to slot in at inside centre, pushing Bundee Aki to outside centre, and Ringrose onto the right wing. Lowe’s removal at half-time forced Conor Murray into the fray, the scrum-half taking over at number nine as Jamison Gibson-Park moved to the left wing.
Yet Ireland kept scoring, aided by a Scottish yellow card as replacement back Ollie Smith was sin-binned for a trip on Sexton. Dan Sheehan’s 44th minute try gave Farrell the opportunity to deploy his remaining replacements as captain Sexton, centurion O’Mahony, Tadhg Beirne and the starting front row were all withdrawn on 49 minutes.
It was not until Ringrose had scored on 58 minutes that Scotland came alive, two quickfire converted tries from replacement hooker Ewan Ashman and scrum-half Ali Price exploiting a suddenly disjointed Ireland team to finally trouble the scoreboard.
The Scots had belief again at 36-14, based on their experience of rallying from large deficits against both England and France in recent memory yet Ireland regained their composure sufficiently to take the sting out of Scotland’s momentum with a well-managed end game.
Job done, now for another tilt at that first World Cup quarter-final victory.
IRELAND H Keenan; M Hansen (S McCloskey, 21-31 – HIA, 34), G Ringrose, B Aki, J Lowe (C Murray, h-t); J Sexton – captain (J Crowley, 45), J Gibson-Park; A Porter (D Kilcoyne, 48), D Sheehan (R Kelleher, 48), T Furlong (F Bealham, 49); T Beirne (J Ryan, 48), I Henderson; P O'Mahony (J Conan, 49), J van der Flier, C Doris.
SCOTLAND B Kinghorn (O Smith, 8 - HIA); D Graham (G Horne, 50), H Jones, S Tuipulotu, D van der Merwe; F Russell, A Price; P Schoeman (R Sutherland, 53), G Turner (E Ashman, 59), Z Fagerson (WP Nel, 60); R Gray, G Gilchrist (S Cummings, 45); J Ritchie – captain (M Fagerson, 18), R Darge (L Crosbie, 65), J Dempsey.
Yellow Card: O Smith 42-52.Â
Referee: Nic Berry (Australia).
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