Ireland stunned England 13-9 in the Six Nations on Saturday to deny
their old rivals a second successive grand slam and end their hopes of a
world record 19th victory in a row.
Joe Schmidt's Irish team
secured a top seeding for the 2019 World Cup draw as a try by lock Iain
Henderson after 23 minutes proved the difference between the sides.
While
England improved after being completely dominated in the first half,
they failed to make a serious dent in the Irish defence.
England
won the tournament last week with a 61-21 thrashing of Scotland, but
they collected the Six Nations trophy in a downbeat mood as the third
English side in 16 years to be denied a grand slam in Dublin on the
final day of the tournament.
"We didn't slam it but, hey-ho, we're
still the champions," said England captain Dylan Hartley. "Full credit
to Ireland. They put us under unbelievable pressure."
England lost
in 2001 and 2011 but hammered Ireland in a grand slam decider in the
old Lansdowne Road in 2003, months before they won the World Cup.
The
win also denied England a tier-one record of 19 consecutive wins just
four months after Ireland prevented world champions New Zealand from
reaching the same milestone with a 40-29 win in November.
No comments:
Post a Comment