One other warmup sport for Eire as they ponder the large one subsequent weekend once they tackle the Spring Boks. Whereas the brand new eligibility legal guidelines have allowed groups like Tonga to doubtlessly be extra of a risk than in earlier years, the sport confirmed that it takes various names to alter a crew.

The Match

Scientific is one of the best ways to explain this match. Eire performed very medical and to their strengths operating out a fairly simple 59 – 16 win towards a Tongan facet that by no means actually lived to the potential a few of their extra skilled gamers would have needed. The preliminary begin to the sport was a fairly cease/begin affair with each side taking time to settle into the sport and making errors that the opposite facet might capitalise on. Plenty of backwards and forwards rugby with gamers from each side having some good carries. Aki specifically carried nicely for Eire and appeared to recover from the achieve line with ease. Errors from among the Irish gamers saved permitting Tonga again into the sport and on the finish of the first Qtr the rating was tied at 3 all. Eire received a line out arduous on assault and after a very good bit of labor Tadhg Beirne scores the primary strive for Eire. The match continues in a lot the identical method with Eire dominating within the forwards and Tonga attempting to run the ball however making dealing with errors that saved giving the benefit again to Eire. In poor health disciple continued to trigger Eire points and finally Wayne Barnes handed a Yellow Card to Peter O’Mahony for a cynical offside whereas defending the strive line. Tonga  do finally rating a strive by means of their forwards and go into the break down 31 – 13.

The second half was a little bit of a rinse and repeat of the primary. Eire got here out with six modifications and the gamers appeared to take time to settle into the sport once more with poor self-discipline and a few fundamental errors protecting Tonga within the sport. The primary 20 minutes see Tonga creating a number of stress and a few poor dealing with inflicting each side to overlook scoring alternatives. Ultimately the stress from Eire continues and so they begin getting the factors once more with 3 fast tries that takes the scoreboard out to 59 – 16.

On the entire I don’t suppose this was the sport Eire needed going into the match subsequent week. Their self-discipline was poor and solely actually made to look okay by Tonga’s which was worse. Whereas Eire acquired some good tries and a few gamers akin to Aki and Hansen seemed good, there would have been far too many errors and poor selections that Farrell will wish to lower out in the event that they hope to have an opportunity towards the Boks. Tonga tried arduous and whereas a few of their extra skilled gamers did nicely at occasions, they lack coordination and this mixed with their poor self-discipline allowed Eire to dominate.

The Recreation Changer

Like most of those unbalanced matches, there wasn’t actually any sport changer as such. In each halves Eire took time to get organised, however as soon as they did they had been very medical and performed a sport that Tonga couldn’t compete at.

The Man of the Match/Standout Gamers

For Eire I assumed Bunda Aki and Mack Hansen performed very nicely. Aki ran arduous all day into contact and appeared to have the ability to get to the achieve line fairly simply. He additionally confirmed a fantastic flip of velocity to attain within the 2nd half. Hansen was a hazard each time he acquired the ball and confirmed some nice footwork to attain his strive within the first half. Collectively the Irish forwards had been good, however I believe made to look higher by Tonga.

For Tonga,Salesi Piutau confirmed his class and Wiiliam Havili at 10 performed nicely with some good kicking. I assumed Vaea Fifita was superb with some huge defence and hit ups. Nevertheless Tonga have to work extra cohesively and I felt performed too individually to actually threaten.