Ireland will continue to ease into this year’s Rugby World Cup when take on Romania at Wembley Stadium.
| POOL D – Match #19 – Ireland v Romania | ||||
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| Overall Stats Ireland | vs | Overall Stats Romania | ||
| Average Score : Ireland 43.25 vs 11.50 Romania | ||||
| Games Played | 8 | Games Played | 8 | |
| *Games Won | 8 | *Games Won | 0 | |
| *Games Lost | 0 | *Games Lost | 8 | |
| Games Drawn | 0 | Games Drawn | 0 | |
| *Longest.Winning.Streak | 8 | *Longest.Winning.Streak | 0 | |
| *Longest Losing Streak | 0 | *Longest Losing Streak | 8 | |
| *Largest Points For | 60 | *Largest Points For | 35 | |
| *Largest Points Against | 35 | *Largest Points Against | 60 | |
| *Largest.Winning.Margin | 60 | *Largest.Winning.Margin | 0 | |
| *Largest Losing Margin | 0 | *Largest Losing Margin | -60 | |
| *Total Points For | 346 | *Total Points For | 92 | |
| *Avg Points For | 43.25 | *Avg Points For | 11.5 | |
| *Total Points Against | 92 | *Total Points Against | 346 | |
| *Avg Points Against | 11.5 | *Avg Points Against | 43.25 | |
| *Total Points Difference | 254 | *Total Points Difference | -254 | |
| *Avg Points Difference | 31.75 | *Avg Points Difference | -31.75 | |
| * = By Ireland | * = By Romania | |||
| Past Meetings | |||||
| 26-Nov-05 | Ireland | 43 | 12 | Romania | Dublin, Ireland |
| 11-Oct-03 | Ireland | 45 | 17 | Romania | Gosford, Australia |
| 7-Sep-02 | Ireland | 39 | 8 | Romania | Limerick, Ireland |
| 2-Jun-01 | Romania | 3 | 37 | Ireland | Bucharest, Romania |
| 15-Oct-99 | Ireland | 44 | 14 | Romania | Dublin, Ireland |
| 21-Nov-98 | Ireland | 53 | 35 | Romania | Dublin, Ireland |
| 13-Nov-93 | Ireland | 25 | 3 | Romania | Dublin, Ireland |
| 1-Nov-86 | Ireland | 60 | 0 | Romania | Dublin, Ireland |
POSSIBLE RR World Rankings outcome on Result
IRE (on 84.39 points) at a Neutral venue -vs- ROM (on 66.56 points) in a RWC match
| Possible Outcome | Rating Point Exchange |
New IRE Rating |
New ROM Rating |
Will ROM overtake IRE? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| If IRE win by 1-15 points | 0.000 | 84.39 | 66.56 | No |
| If IRE win by more than 15 | 0.000 | 84.39 | 66.56 | No |
| If result is a draw | 2.000 | 82.39 | 68.56 | No |
| If ROM win by 1-15 points | 4.000 | 80.39 | 70.56 | No |
| If ROM win by more than 15 | 6.000 | 78.39 | 72.56 | No |
The Oaks have have had only four days to recover from playing France late on Wednesday.
Japan went from producing the World Cup’s biggest shock to four days later being thrashed by Scotland, going some way to prove that it’s almost impossible for the smaller nations to recover in time.
Romania never made life easy for France with the way their scrum competed and their physicality at the breakdown, holding Philippe Saint-André’s side in check before les Bleus broke out late on.
The main issues was that despite being able to enjoy plenty of possession and territory on the back of that hard groundwork, they lacked enough cutting edge to trouble the French defence.
If Romania can get their trio of gamebreakers into the game – Florin Vlaicu, Paula Kinikinilau and Catalin Fercu – then Ireland will be tested but the assumption is that the Six Nations champions will be covered defensively even though Romania are improving when it comes to playing the ball wide.
“We have started to play a more open game and that was clear [on Wednesday]. We are working even harder now to make sure we can match the Tier One nations,” prop Paulica Ion said.
“We only get the opportunities maybe once or twice every two years to play the countries in the Six Nations. If we could play them more often I think we would have had a much tighter game yesterday.”
Ireland will be fresher thanks to 12 changes from the side who easily defeated Canada last weekend, with Jamie Heaslip named captain as Paul O’Connell gets a half rest by being named on the bench.
Joe Schmidt is taking no risks with Jonathan Sexton and rightly so by resting him ahead of the double header against Italy and France to come, with the same going for Peter O’Mahony.
But Ireland’s side for Sunday is still packed full of quality and it seems fair to expect them to produce more than France’s second-string did against Romania earlier this week.
Cian Healy has a chance to get valuable minutes under his belt but it will be far from an easy ride at scrum-time for the Ireland star.
Blessed with easily the most most comfortable opening of any of the Rugby World Cup contenders, anything other than a bonus-point win for Ireland would be unacceptable.
Schmidt said: “There’s a realisation from them, particularly after viewing Wednesday evening’s game with Romania playing France, there’s a realisation that it’s an opportunity but also a massive responsibility from them to ensure that we get the result, and that’s going to take a bit of work.”
The Teams:
- Ireland: 15 Simon Zebo, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Jared Payne, 12 Darren Cave, 11 Keith Earls, 10 Ian Madigan, 9 Eoin Reddan, 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Chris Henry, 6 Jordi Murphy, 5 Devin Toner, 4 Donnacha Ryan, 3 Nathan White, 2 Richardt Strauss, 1 Cian Healy.
Replacements: 16 Sean Cronin, 17 Jack McGrath, 18 Tadhg Furlong, 19 Paul O’Connell, 20 Sean O’Brien, 21 Conor Murray, 22 Paddy Jackson, 23 Rob Kearney
- Romania: 15 Catalin Fercu, 14 Adrian Apostol, 13 Paula Kinikinilau, 12 Csaba Gal, 11 Ionut Botezatu , 10 Michael Wiringi, 9 Valentin Calafeteanu, 8 Daniel Carpo, 7 Mihai Macovei (c), 6 Valentin Ursache, 5 Ovidiu Tonita, 4 Valentin Poparlan, 3 Paulica Ion, 2 Andrei Radoi, 1 Andrei Ursache
Replacements: 16 Mihaita Lazar, 17 Otar Turashvili, 18 Alexandru Tarus, 19 Johan Van Heerden, 20 Stelian Burcea, 21 Florin Surugiu , 22 Florin Ionita, 23 Florin Vlaicu
- Date: Sunday, September 27
- Venue: Wembley Stadium, London
- Kick-off: 16:45 local (15:45 GMT)
- Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
- Assistant Referees: Leighton Hodges (Wales),Romain Poite (France)
- TMO: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa)
- Full Pool Previews – Click Individual Pool Below
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