Ireland outclass Canada in Cardiff

Canada fell to Ireland by a convincing score of 50-7 at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday. Ireland dominated possession and forced Canada to spend the vast majority of the first half defending, in which they scored 29 unanswered points. An improved second half saw Canada score a try, but as exhaustion set in Ireland rounded out an impressive scoreline with two late scores of their own.

A strong start from Canada saw them compete well with the much-favored Irish side. Both phase play and defense looked improved and showed that the Canadians were not there to lie down.

It was a stalemate until a questionable not-straight call handed possession to Ireland deep in Canadian territory, resulting in a routine penalty for Jonny Sexton. Ireland got the ball back from the kickoff and immediately began piling the pressure on with their heavy ball carriers up front.

The breaking point came in the 17th minute when Jamie Cudmore was sent to the bin for deliberately playing the ball off his feet just a couple metres out from his line. Within seconds Sean O’Brien was over from the back of a maul, and with Canada’s captain and must physical defender off the pitch, the floodgates opened.

Iain Henderson and then Sexton went over in quick succession. Cudmore returned but the attrition of constant defense was starting to show, and a three-man overlap was conjured on second phase, with Dave Kearney skating in to do the honours.

Canada finally regained possession and put in some positive metres, piling towards the Ireland line. They worked an overlap and DTH van der Merwe looked to be over in the corner, but the replay showed that the ball had come forward from Nathan Hirayama on the tap-through, a cruel end to the half for the men in red desperate for a score.

The second half proved much more competitive, with no score coming until 66th minute as the Canadian defense started to run out of gas. Sean Cronin barged over to get things moving again, but van der Merwe got his rewards as he picked off a loose pass to scamper 50 metres down the pitch for a deserved try, getting the goose egg off the scoreboard for his country.

Late tries for Rob Kearney and Jared Payne closed out the scoring for Ireland, who now move on to face Romania at Wembley Stadium next Sunday. Canada will look to turn their fortunes around against Italy in Leeds on Saturday.

IRELAND 50
Tries – S. O’Brien (18), I. Henderson (24), J. Sexton (28), D. Kearney (35), S. Cronin (66), R. Kearney (73), J. Payne (76)
Cons – J. Sexton 3 (19, 25, 36), I. Madigan 3 (67, 74, 77)
Pens – J. Sexton (13)
Yellow cards – P. O’Connell (42)

CANADA 7
Tries – D. van der Merwe (68)
Cons – N. Hirayama (69)
Yellow cards – J. Cudmore (17)

IRELAND
1 J. McGrath (C. Healy 60) 2 R. Best (S. Cronin 60) 3 M. Ross (N. White 60) 4 I. Henderson 5 P. O’Connell (capt.) (D. Ryan 74) 6 P. O’Mahony 7 S. O’Brien (C. Henry 63) 8 J. Heaslip 9 C. Murray (E. Reddan 65) 10 J. Sexton (I. Madigan 55) 11 K. Earls 12 L. Fitzgerald (S. Zebo 74) 13 J. Payne 14 D. Kearney 15 R. Kearney

CANADA
1 H. Buydens (D. Sears-Duru 48) 2 R. Barkwill (B. Pifféro 63) 3 D. Wooldridge (A. Tiedemann 68) 4 B. Beukeboom 5 J. Cudmore (capt.) 6 K. Gilmour (J. Sinclair 48) 7 J. Moonlight 8 A. Carpenter 9 G. McRorie (P. Mack 48) 10 N. Hirayama 11 D. van der Merwe 12 N. Blevins 13 C. Hearn 14 J. Hassler (C. Trainor HT) 15 M. Evans (L. Underwood HT {R. Thorpe 74})