England Saxons relinquished their grip on the Churchill Cup when Ireland ‘A’ out muscled and out played them in the final at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Denver, Colorado on Sunday.

For 6 minutes it looked like England would be keeping the cup as their scrum forced two penalties both converted by Stephen Myler and a 6-0 lead. This was as good as it got as Ireland re-grouped and started to pressure, taking a penalty on 6 minutes, followed by their first try on 13 minutes through Devon Toner 6-10. England narrowed the gap with a further penalty on 18 minutes and missed the opportunity to take back the lead with a missed penalty on 21 minutes 9-10. Ireland stretched further away thanks to a neat Isaac Boss try 9-17 and 23 minutes gone. Myler closed the gap again for England with a penalty on 30 minutes 12-17. But the last points of the half went to Dave Sexton with a drop goal, giving us the half-time score of 12-20.

England needed to score first in the second period if they were going to press for the win, however it was Ireland who scored right from the off as their kick-off was not fielded by England and then Sean Cronin ran through ineffective defence to score a soft try, with Sexton in the bin the conversion was taken by Fergus McFadden and the score moved to 12-27. The Saxons did manage a score on 45 minutes through Ben Woods 17-27. Ireland then put the game out of sight as Felix Jones, Johne Murphy and John Muldoon all scored with a penalty in between and at 74 minutes it was 17-49. Tom Varndell did get a consolation try for Saxons on the last knockings to make the score slightly more respectable and give us the final score of:

England Saxons 22 Ireland A 49

Teams

England Saxons: Abendanon, Cato, Waldouck, Barritt, Varndell, Myler, Young, Flatman, Webber, Cole, Hooper, Kennedy, Dowson, Woods, Narraway.
Replacements: Ward, Mercey, Schofield, Guest, Simpson, Cipriani, Geraghty.

Ireland A: Jones, Hurley, McFadden, Matthews, J. Murphy, Sexton, Boss, Healy, Cronin, Buckley, Ryan, Toner, Best, Ronan, Henry.
Replacements: Fogarty, Young, Hogan, Muldoon, Keogh, O’Connor, Downey.

Churchill Cup