Ireland produced the upset of the Rugby World Cup on the back of their dominant scrum to kick to a 15-6 win over Tri-Nations champions Australia and take charge of pool C yesterday.
Jonathan Sexton and Ronan O’Gara each landed two penalty goals and Sexton added a drop goal to inflict the Wallabies’ first pool-stage loss at a World Cup since they went down to hosts South Africa in 1995.
James O’Connor kicked two first-half penalties for Australia, who conceded five scrum penalties and struggled to display any fluidity after having lost flanker David Pocock and hooker Stephen Moore to injury or illness in the hours leading up the match at Eden Park.
Photo: EPA
Ireland can almost certainly avoid defending champions South Africa and the top-ranked All Blacks on their side of the knockout draw by beating Italy on Oct. 2. That fate is now likely to befall the Wallabies, who are ranked six places higher than Ireland at No. 2 by the International Rugby Board.
After some heartbreaking defeats to Australia at the World Cup, including the 1991 quarter-final in Dublin, which has become part of the tournament’s folklore, Ireland were euphoric.
“It was the performance we knew we had in us. We had incredible support and it was our job to give them something to shout about, and thankfully we managed to do that,” Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll said. “We had to go to the well today, we had to dig deeper than we had done. And thankfully we managed to do that.”
Photo: Reuters
Ireland ran back onto the field after the match to salute the thousands of traveling fans, but O’Driscoll later reminded them that only half the job was done in the group stage.
“Let’s not lose sight of the fact we have two more games,” he said.
Australia have the youngest squad at the tournament, but came into the tournament on a high after beating defending World Cup champions South Africa and No. 1-ranked New Zealand last month to claim their first Tri-Nations title in a decade. The more they tried to play running rugby, the more it backfired.
“The Irish did well to spoil our ball. We couldn’t get any momentum,” Wallabies captain James Horwill said. “We played some dumb footy.”
“We were giving away silly penalties. We didn’t do well to hold on to the ball enough,” he added.
Coming off an unconvincing 22-10 win over the US after four straight losses in warm-up matches, Ireland had been written off by the critics. However, Australia had no answer to a committed and dynamic performance from the Ireland forwards and often fell foul of referee Bryce Lawrence.
The Wallabies had wobbled in the first half of their 32-6 win over Italy last week, being held to a 6-6 scoreline at halftime before scoring four second-half tries. And that initial disjointed and erratic form returned yesterday with few players enhancing their reputations.
The Wallabies’ double-blow to their starting lineup didn’t help, losing Pocock early yesterday because of a back injury before Moore withdrew in the hours leading up to kickoff due to illness.
Ben McCalman made his first Test start on the openside flank to take over from Pocock, and Tatafu Polota-Nau made only his fifth start in 26 Tests in replacing Moore.
The loss of Pocock, one of the premier ball fetchers in the game, and Australia’s most experienced hooker in Moore were serious setbacks to a team already reeling from winger Digby Ioane’s absence after the powerful winger fractured his thumb against Italy.
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