England \u2018A\u2019 breezed to victory over Ireland XV, as they registered eight tries over a disappointing home side at Thomond Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two Irish tries in reply did little to halt the English, in what was viewed as an opportunity for fringe players to stake a claim for frontline inclusion during the Six Nations.<\/p>\n
Andy Farrell and other members of the senior Irish coaching ticket were among those who made the trip to Limerick, though the paying supporters didn\u2019t overly buy into this fixture.<\/p>\n
Able to name a sextet of players with senior caps in the starting side, Connacht-bound out-half Ciaran Frawley was perhaps the standout name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frawley, as well as Munster\u2019s Shane Daly, featured in this fixture 12 months ago, where Ireland were beaten 28-12 at Ashton Gate.<\/p>\n
Ulster led the way with six starting players, Leinster had five included, while four from Munster and Connacht\u2019s Billy Bohan completed the starting XV.<\/p>\n
Alex Dombrandt was the marquee player for England. The number eight has 23 international caps, having made his debut nearly five years ago for England, selected by then-head coach, Eddie Jones. He was among 10 capped players listed by head coach Mark Mapletoft.<\/p>\n
Irish head coach Cullie Tucker had Sean O\u2019Brien (defence), John Muldoon (forwards) and Mark Sexton (attack) in his backroom team. Given the short-training period as a cohesive unit, the early exchanges were unsurprisingly scrappy and without fluency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
England had played New Zealand \u2018A\u2019 and Spain late in 2025 and their fluency was a notch or two ahead of the home side.<\/p>\n
Ireland conceded with the first notable defensive play, a scrum five meters from their own line. England went quick off a free-kick and Ethan Roots, the English skipper, powered his way over. Billy Searle obliged to give England a 7-0 advantage after ten minutes.<\/p>\n
Searle wheeled his way into the corner for a try of his own, this time off a rolling maul for a second five-pointer for the visitors.<\/p>\n
A brace of offside infringements allowed Ireland to tap-and-go close to the line, and Munster\u2019s Brian Gleeson powered over to get the green scoreboard moving. The gap was quickly eroded, however, as a disjointed defence was exposed, allowing Ollie Hassell-Collins to walk in the third English try.<\/p>\n
The sides exchanged five-pointers before half-time as scrum-half, and Man-of-the-Match, Harry Randall\u2019s jinked in for England\u2019s fourth before James Hume pounced on a stray pass to kick through for Joshua Kenny. Frawley\u2019s routine two-pointer meant the gap was cut to 10, 14-24, at half-time.<\/p>\n
George Kloska was next over the whitewash, with Fineen Wycherley in the bin. Hassell-Collins walked in his second to stretch the margin even further.<\/p>\n
Replacement Cathal Forde, of Connacht, raced in for a third Irish try only for the TMO to deny him due to an earlier knock-on.<\/p>\n
Harlequins winger Cadan Murley sprinted in for a seventh, as the chasm between the sides grew. Roots crashed over the eighth try just before the final whistle.<\/p>\n
\n Ireland XV: S Daly; J Kenny, J Hume, D Kelly, Z Ward; C Frawley, F Gunne; B Bohan, G McCarthy, S Wilson; C Irvine, F Wycherley; M Deegan (Capt), B Ward, B Gleeson.<\/p>\n
\n Replacements: D Barron, S Crean, J Aungier, H Sheridan, P Boyle M Devine, C Forde, S Jansen.<\/p>\n
\n England \u2018A\u2019: J Carpenter; C Murley, L Northmore, O Bailey, O Hassell\u2011Collins; B Searle, H Randall; T Haffar, J Blamire, G Kloska; B Bamber, J Batley; E Roots (Capt), J Kenningham, A Dombrandt.<\/p>\n
\n Replacements: K Tuipulotu, A Van Der Flier, A Fasogbon, H Tizard, F Harding, R Quirke, C Atkinson, G Hendy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England \u2018A\u2019 breezed to victory over Ireland XV, as they registered eight tries over a disappointing home side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54046,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-284924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}