Parks boots Ireland
20 Mar 2010
Dan Parks kicked 18 points in Scotland’s thoroughly deserved 23-20 win over Ireland in Dublin.
Ireland were aiming for a Triple Crown after wins over England and Wales, while the visitors’ best result of the tournament was a draw last week against England.
Parks’ composed performance handed the Scots their first win of the campaign and they were clearly the better side on the night. Don’t be fooled by Ireland scoring two tries to Scotland’s one. The first Irish try should have been disallowed while the hosts were too loose in their approach.
Brian O’Driscoll’s fortuitous try handed the hosts a 7-3 lead after 10 minutes, as the Irish skipper received a forward pass in the build-up, but referee Jonathan Kaplan missed the infringement. However, for the rest of the half the Scots dominated, especially at the set-pieces.
They replied with a try from No 8 Johnnie Beattie, while Parks’s boot was invaluable.
While Jonny Sexton missed penalties at goal, his Scottish counter-part was unflappable as he kicked two penalties and drop with the last movement of the half as they went into the shed 14-7 up.
The Irish lineout continued to wobble, while Sexton missed another kickable three points. After 47 minutes, Parks showed him how to do it as the Scots extended their lead to 10 (17-7).
The Ireland flyhalf’s final act was to eventually slot three points, but with half an hour remaining, Ronan O’Gara replaced him.
O’Gara’s presence sparked the best passage of Irish play, but a vital turnover 2m from the tryline halted the move.
The Irish pressure began to tell, and with 15 minutes remaining Tommy Bowe crashed over the line, and O’Gara slotted the kick from the corner to draw the scores level.
With seven minutes remaining, Parks knocked over what looked like the match-winning points. However, Kaplan had another notable impact as he surprisingly penalised the Scots at scrum-time, after they had dominated there the entire match. O’Gara again drew the hosts level with four minutes remaining.
The string of penalties continued, and Parks kicked another magnificent penalty from the corner to seal the result.
By Grant Ball
19 Comments
20 Mar 2010, 19:00 pm
Go Scotland!
20 Mar 2010, 19:15 pm
Brian O’Driscoll scores his first 6 Nations try of the tournamant!!
20 Mar 2010, 19:19 pm
Nice try by Scotland. Quite impressive.
20 Mar 2010, 19:28 pm
Anyone has the link for this game?
20 Mar 2010, 19:55 pm
This new female tv commentator for the BBC is bit of a fox!
20 Mar 2010, 20:07 pm
Come on scotlad!!
20 Mar 2010, 20:47 pm
Well done Scots!!!!!
20 Mar 2010, 20:52 pm
Very Very nice! How you like them apples Irish?
20 Mar 2010, 20:54 pm
Didn’t see the game, but can only imagine the Irish commentators, blasting the SA refs!! LOL!
20 Mar 2010, 21:26 pm
@KZN King Shark: Gabby Logan?
20 Mar 2010, 21:50 pm
@Big Hit: No it wasn’t Gabby Logan, some other woman I’ve not seen before. Bit of a milf.
21 Mar 2010, 04:19 am
HAH!
21 Mar 2010, 05:54 am
Congratulations to Scotland – much the better team and 100% deserved the win.
We’ll need to do some soul-searching now. The line-out was bound to have a poor day at some stage, and it is impossible to create a platform the backs with neither a functioning line-out or scrum. I cannot fathom why Best didn’t just play the percentages and throw to the front though.
Our attacking play in the first 20 minutes was magnificent at times, but left us very exposed when it went wrong, and Scotland went over for an excellent, if unexpected, try. Doesn’t change the fact that in order to play good attacking rugby you need a functioning set-piece. France and Scotland have that, but seemingly nobody else in the NH.
Again, congrats Scotland – well-deserved.
21 Mar 2010, 05:55 am
@Johan Fourie: Nobody blasted the ref – he had a good game.
21 Mar 2010, 11:56 am
just goes to show how knackered and out of sorts the boks were last november/december.
I mean seriously. losing to scotland at home?
21 Mar 2010, 12:03 pm
@anylayman: 13
Absolutely correct….can never underestimate the neccessity for a soung platform from lineout and scrum.
21 Mar 2010, 17:58 pm
/\___/\
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ROAR …®
22 Mar 2010, 10:50 am
it was a tough game to watch being irish, but on international team excepting to do well in the worldcup can do thing with a fly-half who have a kicking average of 33% not good enough, ireland tried to play Super 14 bulls type rugby (for the final game in the stadium) we let you score but we will score more hehe unfortately the scots had our number on saturday as defended with real passion…..
anyway i hope this proves that ronan o gara although steam rolled but fouire in the second lions test…. should still be the irish number 10….
have a great everyone in SA, miss ye ***
25 Mar 2010, 21:07 pm
@Brigadier Van Zyl: Everybody loses games. The trick is to learn the lessons and come back stronger the next year.
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