ireland-rugby.com

	IRELAND 23	-	20 ITALY
Tries:	Trimble O’Gara		Troncon Pratichetti
Cons:	O’Gara 2		Bortolussi De Marigny
Pens:	O’Gara 2		Bortolussi
DG:	O’Gara		Bortolussi

It took a fortunate controversial injury-time try by Ronan O’Gara for Ireland to scrape past the Italians in their World Cup warm-up game last night.

For the 14,000 strong crowd it should have been a batter performance on their first game at Ravenhill in 53 years (but lets face it, they struggled in their first game at Croke - stop messing with the home ground guys, get Landsdowne finished ASAP!).

After just three minutes Ireland should have gone in front as Denis Leamy made a break for it and Denis Hickie opted to fight it out alone in the Italian defence, rather than passing to Girvan Dempsey.

Further pressure gave Ireland the lead after a successive penalty by O’Gara in the sixth minute, but instead of pushing on - they seemed to sit back!

A loose clearance in the 21st minute allowed David Bortolussi to gather and kick a superb drop goal from the 10 metre line.

What is it with players punching the Irish team these days? Tempers flared again with a number of players getting involved when Sergio Parisse punched Peter Stringer.

Ireland did what it does best and responded in true form to the flared tempers with Ulsterman Andrew Trimble scraping over the line for another try, O’Gara’s conversion put just four points between the two sides. Only for Bortolussi to slot home a further penalty in the 32nd minute.

With the Irish pack looking under pressure in the scrum, winger Matteo Pratichetti won a penalty after charging into the Irish 22. Tronton’s quick tap saw him burst through Ireland’s defence to get the try (video checked).

Bortolussi converted to see Ireland going in at half time 13-10 down.

Ireland gave a rousing start, with the prominent Geordan Murphy in the thick of it. In a game where error counts were high O’Gara punished the Italians with a penalty just moments after hitting the woodwork.

A Trimble break wasn’t to be in the 72nd after an Italian fumble for Hickie, but he didn’t have the legs to get past Kaine Robertson.

With Ireland finally in Italian territory O’Gara seized a chance and regained the lead by firing over a long-range drop goal in the 74th minute.

Italy appeared to have won the game in injury time (despite Geordan Murphy’s protest that he was impeded in the build-up), when Peter Stringer fumbled a ball in the Italian half allowing Pratichetti to break through and score the try. De Marigny converted to leave Italy 20-16 in injury time.

Looking beaten Ireland stuck their hands up to go for one last chance, Trimble’s pass setting O’Gara up to charge for the line. There was some doubt over whether he had grounded the ball during a challenge by Kaine Robertson but the score was awarded by the video ref - much to the Ravenhill crowd’s relief.

No, Horgan, Wallace or O’Driscoll, but you’ve got to say - it doesn’t make good reading with Argentina and France in Pool D!

Coach’s Comment

Ireland
After the match O’Sullivan commented:

“I was disappointed to say the least. It didn’t happen for us,”

“We didn’t get into a rhythm out there. It was stop-start in the first half. We needed to ratchet it up in the second half but we didn’t do that.

“The one good thing is that we showed character to come back at the end.”

“We didn’t create any real good platform at the breakdown to run at the Italians which we knew we would have to do.

“Our ruck ball slowed down a lot tonight. The key for our game is good ruck ball but (instead) there was a lot of digging for the ball and a lot of slow ball.

“They are a physical side and once we didn’t get them on the back foot, it was going to be a tough day.”

Despite his team’s struggles, O’Sullivan claimed that his side “are not 100 miles away”.

“But we have to make a lot of fixes pretty soon.”

Italy
Italian coach Pierre Berbizier felt his team had been “robbed” by referee Nigel Owens’ controversial decision to award O’Gara’s last-gasp try.

“We won today because we saw on the video that O’Gara lost the ball over the line,” said the furious Frenchman.

“I don’t know why the try was given. I didn’t want to go into the World Cup with something like this - we deserve the same respect off the field that we have won on it.

“We clearly saw that O’Gara lost the ball. He did not touch it down, so why was it given? But I am proud of my team because they won the respect of Ireland on the field.”

Ireland:	G Dempsey; G Murphy, A Trimble, G D’Arcy, D Hickie; R O’Gara, P Stringer; M Horan, R Best, J Hayes, P O’Connell, capt, D O’Callaghan, S Easterby, N Best, D Leamy.
Replacements:	J Flannery, S Best, M O’Kelly, A Quinlan, I Boss, P Wallace, B Carney.
Italy:	D Bortolussi, K Robertson, G Canale, M Bergamasco, M Pratichetti, R De Marigny, A Troncon, S Parisse, R Barbieri, A Zanni, M Bortolami (capt), V Bernabo, M Castrogiovanni, Fabio Ongaro, Salvatore Perugini
Replacements:	L Ghiraldini, M Aguero, J Sole, M Vosawai, P Griffen, P Canavosio, E Galon