Ireland beat Australian Schoolboys

December 3, 2009 - 12:35PM
CORK: Ireland again proved a thorn in the side of Australian rugby with the Schoolboys side beaten 15-0 in their international clash at the Cork Institute of Technology this morning.

Trailing 6-0 at halftime, Australia rallied valiantly but poor discipline allowed the golden boot of Irish five-eighth James McKinney to take control of the match with three second-half penalties.

Ireland are proving a northern hemisphere stumbling block for visiting Australian sides after the Wallabies saw their hopes of a grand slam tour extinguished when they drew 20-all with Ireland at Croke Park last month.

Australian coach Rob Nowlan said his side was unable to make the most of their opportunities.

"Ireland were very passionate, they played with pride and vigour and they outplayed us, Nowlan said.

"We had attacking opportunities but we didn't take them, we blew them, we dropped the ball in their half and they had good players in key positions who made us pay," said Australian coach Rob Nowlan.

"The boys are disappointed, they're a bit bewildered with what happened but that's just how it is.

"Ireland played what I like to call strangulation football, they kick the corners, draw the lineout, kick over the top with box kicks, put you under pressure in your half, draw the penalties and kick the goals.

"That's exactly what they did and they did it well."

Australia will now prepare for the challenge of playing their second International in three days when they meet Wales under 19 at Colwyn Bay on Saturday.
AAP

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...1203-k7kg.html

Don't forget this is Irelands u19 team

Pretty good effort that when you consider. The weather conditions in Ireland can't be easy.

Brings a tear to my eye - what a result - hope for the future

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Originally Posted by pruc

Don't forget this is Irelands u19 team

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What age was our team?

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Originally Posted by jargan83

What age was our team?

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Any player that went to school.
With QLD leaving age at 17 majority are around the 17 age with the NSW boys being 18.

so you can't blame the Guinness either !!!!!

Ah look home team advantage - the lads from OZ would never have played on thermo-frost before - and if it was blowing a gale (normal weather for Cork) then all the kicking would have been off as well - I'll concede that 12 months are that age is huge - however much heartened that they all had a game.

The Australian Schoolboys have bounced back from their midweek defeat to Ireland to topple a strong Wales Under 19 outfit 10-6 at Colwyn Bay in North Wales overnight.

Winger Kimami Sitauti scored a try late in the first half as Australia fought hard to make the most of the wet and slippery conditions at Parc Eirias.

Playing their second ‘capped international’ in three days, Australia were determined to make the most of their attacking opportunities after failing to do so in their 15-nil loss to Ireland on Thursday.

The Schoolboys were on the board after 15 minutes when flyhalf Rohan Saifoloi slotted a difficult penalty shot to make it 3-0.

Saifoloithen found himself in open space and set up the Schoolboys try when he passed to fullback Jacob Woodhouse who ran the ball up to the line before offloading to Sitauti who crashed down in the corner.

Saifoloimade the conversion to make it 10-0 after 30 minutes.

Walesfullback Dale Ford pulled the deficit back to 10-3 at halftime with a successful penalty goal attempt, and kicked another in the otherwise scoreless second half.

Australian Schoolboys manager, Graeme Dedrick said Wales pushed Australia for the entire 80 minutes.

“We played some good movements in the first half to put some pressure on the Welsh in really tough conditions,” Dedrick said.

“Wales didn’t back down, it was a really good grinding effort.

"We had a couple of missed chances but we turned it up another level today. Our defence was of a very high standard."

The Australian Schoolboys next play England Under 19 Regional Academy in Lymm on Wednesday in the fourth match of their UK and Ireland tour.

AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLBOYS10 (Kimami Sitauti try, Rohan Saifoloi pen, con) def WALES 6 (Dale Ford 2 cons)

When Ireland Schools came here in 2004 IIRR they were a pretty good team and had some good players. They had a fullback by the name of Rob Kearney who looked goodish. I wonder what happened to him? [Just kidding]

Anyway, when they came here they played against schoolboys. They won every game IIRR, but for the "test" in Canberra. And it was a test: literally - a fair test: it was schoolboys against schoolboys.

But these U/19 teams the Oz Schools boys have to play on their EOYT are not full of schools players. Most of them have got out of school last May/June and have been with a club Academy since then, and the best ones have had the odd stint in their Regional Academy. Sometimes they have players who had left school the year before.

The Ireland team had some schools players in it but the others would have made a difference.

Imagine if Ireland came here next year and we asked them to play an Oz team that had, say, half of their players who were at school but the other half had left school. That other half had been on the 2009 EOYT but had been doing physical and technical training at their state Academy since they arrived back from the tour.

It wouldn't be fair. Although our schools team this year has a lot of deficiencies in certain positions there are more potential Super players in it than any I have seen in the last 10 years; not that I got to see them in every year because their games weren't in Sydney or Canberra.

They deserved a shot at playing their games on an even playing field and they didn't get it, and nor did they get it 4 years ago nor the time before that IIRR.

If Ireland, and more recently, England, can organise a team comprising only schoolboys to come to Oz, surely they can organise such a team at home - just as we do when they come here.

We know why they do it. There used to be an IRB U19 tournament every year and they used the Oz Schools EOYT as selection trials for the tournament at the end of the NH winter. Now the tournament is U/20 but it's Sydney to a brick that their U/20 teams in 2010 will field players who were U/19 against the Aussies in 2009.

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Originally Posted by Lee Grant

it's Sydney to a brick that their U/20 teams in 2010 will field players who were U/19 against the Aussies in 2009.

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In the interests of historical accuracy and respect for the laws of probability I have to pull LG up on this statement. The phrase which he is paraphrasing, made famous by the legendary Sydney racecaller Ken Howard, was "London to a brick on".

What LG is trying to say is that it is a virtual certainty that U/19s who played against the Aussie schoolboys will represent at U/20 level next year, in which case he should have said "it's Sydney to a brick on".

To illustrate, for the benefit of those who didn't waste their youth and hard-earned hanging around race tracks, "Sydney to a brick on" means that the probability of the event occurring is so great that a punter would be prepared to outlay say $1000 to win $1. By contrast "Sydney to a brick" means that the event is so improbable that a bookie would offer to pay punters $1000 for every $1 bet if the event occurs.

LG can be forgiven. Even the Australian Dictionary of Biography quotes Howard as saying "London to a brick".