The Irish Wolfhounds slipped to a 23-17 defeat at the hands of the England Saxons despite scoring three tries at Sandy Park on Saturday evening.
David Kearney, Tomas O’Leary and Simon Zebo all crossed for the Chris Henry-captained Wolfhounds but it wasn’t enough to claim victory in a keenly-contested encounter. However, with a number of players hoping to stake their claim for inclusion in the senior squad, performance will be of some encouragement to Ireland manager Declan Kidney ahead of his side’s RBS Six-Nations opener against Wales in Dublin next Sunday.
The Saxons started brightly and enjoyed the better of the exchanges up front. Promising scrum-half Ben Spencer benefitted from some good forward play after ten minutes when a smart dummy from the base of the ruck allowed him to cross unopposed.
Winger Simon Zebo, a hat-trick hero for Munster in Heineken Cup action last weekend, almost replied immediately but was denied by a powerful tackle from Matt Banahan. However, they didn’t have to wait too long as David Kearney ran a lethal line to carve his way through the Saxons midfield and crash over on 22 minutes.
Freddy Burns missed the chance to extend the Saxons 10-5 half-time advantage early in the second period, but Leicester lock Thomas Waldrom collected a ricochet from a grubber-kick to barge over on 55 minutes to put the game seemingly beyond the Wolfhounds.
Replacement Tomas O'Leary cut the deficit with an opportunist finish just four minutes later, taking advantage of some sloppy tackling, to give some hope to the Irish side, but two late Burns penalties ensured that Zebo’s last-minutes touchdown was merely a consolation.