Ireland 14 England 13: Ireland will reflect on this 80 minutes at Croke Park grateful for several outstanding individual performances but primarily for the fact that England once again displayed such gross indiscipline that ultimately proved their undoing.
Prop Phil Vickery and replacement scrumhalf Danny Care both received yellow cards, the first on the basis of accumulated team transgressions, the second for a stupid shoulder in the back of Irish prop Marcus Horan, off the ball. During the time the English were down to 14 men – those two sin bins take the total in England’s last four matches to a staggering 10 – Ireland managed eight points and that proved decisive.
England coach Martin Johnson should be livid because those indiscretions plus another ridiculously high penalty count effectively cost the visitors the match. His Ireland counterpart Declan Kidney will be grateful to have escaped on a day when Ireland huffed and puffed but lacked the vision to get around a resolute English defence. Kick and chase and lumbering carries around the fringes were never going to discommode England unduly unless the latter was done at pace.
It was largely missing all evening.