It certainly wasn’t Ireland at their best but a significant improvement from the New Zealand game. Critically Ireland kept their cool against an Argentinian side who was willing to rile a packed Croke Park with late challenges and swinging knuckles against the home side.

The forwards exerted enough pressure to control the pumas pack with Paul O’Connell leading the charge on numerous occasions. Defensively Ireland looked strong down the middle however did seem to lack a touch of creativity to break the Argentinian line.

We now look forward to France and the Six Nations on the 7th February.

Team:
G Murphy; T Bowe, B O’Driscoll, L Fitzgerald, R Kearney; R O’Gara, T O’Leary; M Horan, J Flannery (R Best 14), J Hayes, D O’Callaghan,P O’Connell, S Ferris, D Wallace (D Ryan 77), J Heaslip.

If you missed the game or want to relive the best bits watch the video below.

Ireland’s defence was possibly one of the few positives created during the match however even this looked week out wide.

The penalty try was certainly controversial at the very least however was not a reason for a lacklustre second half.

We can only hope that lessons will be learned for next weeks match against Argentina.

Kick-off: 17:15 – Saturday 8 November
Venue: Thomond Park

Ireland will kick of their string of friendlies against Canada in the recently renovated Thomond Park. The match should provide a great opportunity to for coach Declan Kidney to hand out a few new caps in the form of Ryan Cladwell and Keith Earls.

Team
Ireland: Earls; Bowe, O’Driscoll, capt, Fitzgerald, Kearney; O’Gara, Reddan; Horan, Flannery, Buckley, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, Ferris, Jennings, Heaslip.
Replacements (from): R Best, Hayes, Caldwell, Quinlan, D Wallace, P Wallace, Stringer, Horgan.

We hope Brian will be fit for next week’s match however the injury puts his starting place in doubt.

In a gripping game Munster were edged out by defending champions London Wasps. Rua Tipoki’s converted try gave Munster an early lead with Shaun Payne’s try further extending Munster’s lead to 20-13 at half time. The wasps were clearly stung and came out in the second half with intent to ruin any early celebrations.

Two Ciprani penalties brought Wasps within four points. One penalty came after Marcus Horan was binned for coming into the side of a ruck. Wasps took advantage of the extra man with a sweeping move to take the lead, Flutey’s break led to lock Skivington stretching over the line.

The next twenty minutes were a nerve racking affair with both teams failing to rack up any more points finishing the game at 24-23 with Munster taking home a bonus point.

Leinster 22 – 9 Leicester

Leinster had a better result at home with a definitive win over Leicester Tigers. Shayne Horgan proved to be the star of the match with a powering run to give Leinster a 19-6 lead. After a successful world cup campaign Contepomi seems to be brimming with confidence although he missed a late kick by then the result had already been decided.

10 minutes into the game you would be forgiven for thinking that Ireland just might cause the biggest upset in Rugby World Cup history. Ireland started well and the team looked promising, they were certainly hitting the rucks harder than the previous two matches.

At only 3-0 down Ireland were very much in the game, but the attacking line struggled to challenge a very organised French defence. Key players such as Ronan had to play the best rugby of their lives to win, the result showed they didn’t.

Line-outs were poor and to many silly penalties were given away, with incidents like Wallace v.s Chabal the referee should not have the option of making a bad decision in the first place.

If this was a Six Nations match I think Ireland’s early performance may have had more of an effect however with a few wayward refereeing decisions and facing opponents who had no option but to win Ireland failed to stamp any authority on the game.

Ireland were always going to find it hard to beat France in their back yard especially under the circumstances, from the start many of us accounted for this possibility however no one accounted for the first two matches. If Ireland go out on Sunday night it will be the Namibia and Georgia matches that are to blame, those performances should have been the building blocks for what was to follow but instead sucked the confidence from an over complacent squad.

Ireland managed to grind out a win against Italy in Ravenhill this evening, with a flurry of tires in the last five minutes.
Clearly a three point win against Italy is not the perfect scenario going into the World Cup, however credit to Italy they are a physical team who made Ireland work very hard for the win.
Up front Ireland were once again struggling to gain command of the set pieces, this seems to be a recurring problem for Ireland as they lack the physical power at times to clear out opponents.

With a little over two weeks till Ireland’s first game of the World Cup, it’s now or never. Ireland are lucky not to be facing either France or Argentina in their first two games, hopefully Namibia and Georgia will give Ireland the extra time needed to move into first gear and complete their preparation for the big boys.

Have Ireland got enough time to move into first gear?

Brian O’Driscoll has suffered a fractured sinus after being punched in the face, while the injury is not as bad as first thought the IRB have demanded the French rugby union investigate the incident. This was supposedly a friendly match between Ireland and French club Bayonne but instead resulted in five yellow cards and a very physical game.

I don’t mind physicality, but it was more than physical. There were some cheap shots, that’s the pity, but that’s the way they want to play it. We can’t control that, we can only play our game.

Eddie O’Sullivan

It is easy to spin a conspiracy theory on this story, after all it was Bayonne who suggested that Ireland should play a warm-up game with them just weeks before the world cup kicks off. Bayonne were a team with nothing to lose who were clearly in the mind set to rough up a few Irish players.

O’Driscoll will certainly miss Ireland’s first pool game against Namibia and possibly the second game against Georgia. While Ireland should win these games comfortably it is important match time that Brian will be missing out on.

We can only hope for a speedy recovery…