Irish Rugby I XV defeat the Aussies!!!!! The Pinnacle So Far

Totally amazing, they got the start right, the superb turnovers from holding the player up in the tackle, you could see their confidence growing throughout, the Ulster rugby players were amazing and the amount of people in clubs and so on across Ulster would have been amazing as they watched. We’ve been waiting for this great side to really get it together and we can’t help feeling that Kidney may have timed it along with the senior players to peak just at the right time.

Ireland smothered them. The basics of scrum, lineout, defensive line hardly gave the Aussies room for anything. To a man superb!

This of course sets them up moving forward.

Amazing!

IRELAND Team & Replacements (v Australia, 2011 Rugby World Cup Pool C, Eden Park, Saturday, September 17, kick-off 8:30pm local time/9:30am Irish time):

15 – Robert Kearney (UCD/Leinster)*

14 – Tommy Bowe (Ospreys)
13 – Brian O’Driscoll (UCD/Leinster) (capt)
12 – Gordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne/Leinster)
11 – Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster)
10 – Jonathan Sexton (St. Mary’s College/Leinster)
9 – Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster)

1 – Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)*
2 – Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster)
3 – Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster)
4 – Donncha O’Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster)
5 – Paul O’Connell (Young Munster/Munster)
6 – Stephen Ferris (Dungannon/Ulster)
7 – Sean O’Brien (Clontarf / Leinster)*
8 – Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster)

Replacements:

16 – Jerry Flannery (Shannon/Munster)
17 – Tom Court (Malone/Ulster)
18 – Donnacha Ryan (Shannon/Munster)
19 – Denis Leamy (Cork Constitution/Munster)
20 – Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster)
21 – Ronan O’Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster)
22 – Andrew Trimble (Ballymena/Ulster)

*Denotes RWC Debut