Ireland Unstoppable in Thomond Park

Ireland laid down an impressive marker by demolishing Italy 61-6 in their World Cup warm-up clash at Thomond Park in Limerick.

Ireland laid down an impressive marker by demolishing Italy 61-6 in their World Cup warm-up clash at Thomond Park in Limerick. The home side ran in eight tries with winger Denis Hickie grabbing four to surpass Brian O’Driscoll’s record and set a new mark of 19 Test tries for Ireland. Ireland shook off the lethargy which had marked a stop-start first half with a devastating four-try burst in a 12-minute purple patch either side of the interval. Two of the tries went to Hickie, who was making his first international appearance of the season due to injury, and he went over twice more in the space of seven minutes to guarantee himself a World Cup spot. But some of the gloss was taken from their eight-try victory with the loss of number eight Victor Costello with a hand injury while winger John Kelly was carried off on a stretcher just before the end. Costello, who missed the win over Wales a fortnight ago with a calf injury, made a lively start but damaged the fingers of his right hand in a fracas after 29 minutes and took no further part in the match. The injury blows were the last thing on the mind of coach Eddie O’Sullivan eight days before he names his 30-man squad for Australia. But there were more plusses than minuses for O’Sullivan as he watched his side put the disjointed Azzurri to the sword despite making 13 changes to the side that hammered Wales a fortnight ago. Skipper Brian O’Driscoll, one man with nothing left to prove, showed his shimmering skills to the delight of a capacity Munster crowd at Thomond Park and another World Cup certainty, fly-half David Humphreys, contributed 26 points with a try and nine goals from 11 attempts. There were also encouraging perfomrances from a host of fringe candidates, most notably Eric Miller and Leo Cullen, as O’Sullivan took the opportunity to cast his eye over all 22 players. Today’s one-sided encounter keeps Ireland on track to make an impression Down Under, it left Italy’s World Cup plans in disarray. Coach John Kirwan had hoped for a big improvement following his team’s 47-15 defeat by Scotland but they faded badly after a promising opening and have now conceded 108 points in eight days. They were only 9-6 behind after 39 minutes thanks to two penalties from fullback Gert Peens, but they conceded two quick tries in first-half stoppage time to Kelly and Hickie. They then lost the ball straight from the kick off to the second half and never recovered as the Irish went through the gears recycling in clinical fashion and repeatedly turning over Italian possession to maintain the momentum. Hooker Shane Byrne was driven over within two minutes of the restart for his first international try on his 21st appearance and Hickie raced on to Humphreys’ sweetly judged kick to pounce for his second. Hickie then supported a break from his fellow winger Kelly to complete a memorable hat-trick and went on to break the Irish try-scoring record set last season by O’Driscoll by claiming his 19th touchdown. The 26-year-old Leinster man also equalled the Irish record for tries in a match set by Brian Robinson against Zimbabwe in 1991 and matched by Keith Wood against the USA four years ago. A sparkling run from Geordan Murphy enabled fullback Girvan Dempsey to bring up the half century with his 10th try for Ireland and, with the Italians incomplete disarray, Humphreys completed the scoring with his side’s eighth try in the eighth minute of injury time.

Final Score: Ireland 61 Italy 6 Teams:

Ireland

15 Girvan Dempsey, 14 John Kelly, 13 Brian O’Driscoll (c), 12 Rob Henderson, 11 Denis Hickie, 10 David Humphreys, 9 Guy Easterby, 8 Victor Costello, 7 Eric Miller, 6 Simon Easterby, 5 Leo Cullen, 4 Gary Longwell, 3 Reggie Corrigan, 2 Shane Byrne, 1 Marcus Horan. Replacements: 16 Paul Shields, 17 Justin Fitzpatrick, 18 Donnacha O’Callaghan, 19 Kieron Dawson, 20 Brian O’Meara, 21 Geordan Murphy, 22 Jonathan Bell. Italy

15 Gert Peens, 14 Nicola Mazzucato, 13 Cristian Stoica, 12 Matteo Barbini, 11 Diego Sacc ; 10 Francesco Mazzariol, 9 Allesandro Troncon (c), 8 Sergio Parisse, 7 Mauro Bergamasco, 6 Andrea de Rossi, 5 Marc Giacheri, 4 Cristian Bezzi, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Fabio Ongaro, 1 Andrea Lo Cicero. Replacements: 16 Carlo Festuccia, 17 Ramiro Martinez, 18 Aaron Persico, 19 Matt Phillips, 20 Matteo Mazzantini, 21 Ramiro Pez, 22 Andrea Masi. Venue: Thomond Park, Limerick Referee: Steve Lander (England) Touch judges:Nigel Williams (Wales), Dave Changleng (Scotland)