Peter Burke
I could see the comments coming, ‘Worst first 40 mins of rugby I’ve ever watched’, ‘Really poor performance’, ‘Got out of jail with that’ – and so on you get the idea. Now like a lot of you I’ve played in and attended or viewed games that were far from classics but as the much repeated saying goes ‘Win Ugly’ the key to that phrase being ‘Win’. Who cares how you do it just win and that’s exactly what the Irish women did. They needed a win on two fronts, RWC qualification for 2025 in England and a third place finish in the 6 Nations, both of which they achieved.
Post match an emotional Brittany Hogan had this to say:
Hogan said: “It means so much. We came out for a performance today.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen after the end of it if we qualified or not but we just wanted to do it together. I’m so proud.
“We’ve come through so much as a group and every single one of us — management, players, people who aren’t here today and all our supporters — everyone means everything.”
It took the Scots 7 minutes to score a try after a lineout maul following a second penalty given by the Irish, Elis Martin powered over to give the visitors the lead, and with the conversion missed it was a five point lead heading into the sheds.
The rain eased for the second 40 and the handling errors were less apparent with the set piece for both teams malfunctioning badly and if memory serves me Ireland lost 7 lineouts on their own throw.
Ireland came out with a renewed vigor and attacked down the touch line with a kick from O’Brien and Breen reacted to offload to Corrigan who expertly touched down in the corner so it was all square at 5 a piece after 42 minutes.
The Scots were here to win and the brilliant Lisa Thompson split the Irish defence to cross the whitewash to restore the visitors lead to 5 – 12 with Thompson adding the extras.
With 20 minutes to go, Ireland were on level terms as Cliodhna Moloney barged over the line with Dannah O’Brien successfully converting to make it 12-12.
Both teams went in search of that elusive score to win the game and Aoife Wafer, probably the best blindside in the tournament earned a penalty.
O’Brien took the chance and successfully converted giving Ireland a 15-12 lead
Scotland were awarded a scrum penalty but Ireland held out despite Beibhinn Parsons being sent to the bin late on.
RWC qualification secured and a third place 6 Nations achieved.