Ireland raced to the top of Pool A at Rugby World Cup 2003 when they thumped a brave, but hopelessly outclassed, Namibia 64-7 in the rain in Sydney. The Irish scored 10 tries to one in a game in which they dominated all aspects of play.
It is the second game in which the Irish scored a full-house of five points and they now head Pool A with 10 points -- ahead of hosts Australia on nine and Argentina on five.
The game produced a number of records for the Irish.
The first is that this is their biggest score and their biggest-ever victory in a RWC match, while the 10 touch-downs were also the most they have scored in a World Cup match.
But the atrocious conditions, with pouring rain accompanying play throughout the match, contributed to a litany of mistakes and detracted from the match as a spectacle.
This certainly helped the Namibians limit the damage on a day when they surely would have faced a 100 points if the skilful Irish were enjoying such dominance in dry and sunny conditions.
In fact, the Irish pack completely dominated proceeding to send a steady stream of quality possession to their backs. The Namibians managed to win hardly any set-piece ball, as the Irish had them under pressure in the scrums and constantly stole their ball in the line-outs.
The statisticians said Ireland had 70 percent of the ball, but at times it seemed a lot more. And with so much possession it was not surprising that they enjoyed a huge territorial advantage as well.
The Namibians were left to defend for most of the game and this they did bravely, but they were never going to be able to plug all the gaps -- even given the testing conditions.
And on the few occasions the Namibians did get the ball to play with, they were opposed by a strong Irish defence.
The Namibians looked naive in their option-taking and could never cope with the pace and power of the Irish runners, looking like a team that is merely making up the numbers at RWC 2003.
As usual, one or two of the Namibian players tried their best, but on the whole they were badly outclassed. Another game that is a case for those who are proposing a two-tier RWC, where the big guns play each other and the minnows compete in a second division.
Man of the match: The Irish pack was so dominant that almost all the forwards come into the picture, with lock Paul O'Connell leading the way. But our vote goes to winger Denis Hickie, who showed that you can handle the ball in difficult conditions, while he was a slippery customer to handle when he went on the run, always troubling the defence.
Moment of the match: There were 10 tries, but surely the most noticeable moment was the try in the 32nd minute, awarded to Irish prop Marcus Horan. It showed how badly match officials can get it wrong, even with technology at their disposal. Horan tackled an opponent just on the Namibian tryline and forced him over the line. It was referred to the TMO, who then awarded a try to Ireland. But television replays showed that the Namibian's forearm forced the ball on the ground, before it slipped out and under the body of the Irish prop. The first "downward pressure" was clearly by the Namibian.
Villain of the match: This one has to go to Namibian lock Heino Senekal for his yellow card in the 20th minute for repeated offences.
The Teams:
Namibia: 1 Neil Du Toit, 2 J.M. Meyer, 3 Kees Lensing, 4 Heino Senekal, 5 Archie Graham, 6 Schalk Van Der Merwe, 7 Wolfie Duvenhage, 8 Sean Furter (c), 9 Hakkies Husselman, 10 Emile Wessels, 11 Deon Mouton, 12 Du Preez Grobler, 13 Corne Powell, 14 Vincent Dreyer, 15 Ronaldo Pedro
Reserves: Melrick Afrika, Andries Blaauw, Herman Lintvelt, Niel Swanepoel, Mot Schreuder, Cor Van Tonder, Jurgens Van Lill
Ireland: 1 John Hayes, 2 Keith Wood (c), 3 Marcus Horan, 4 Malcolm O'Kelly, 5 Paul O'Connell, 6 Simon Easterby, 7 Alan Quinlan, 8 Eric Miller, 9 Peter Stringer, 10 Ronan O'Gara, 11 Denis Hickie, 12 Brian O'Driscoll, 13 Kevin Maggs, 14 Shane Horgan, 15 Girvan Dempsey
Reserves: Shane Byrne, Guy Easterby, Simon Best, John Kelly
Unused: Victor Costello, David Humphreys, Donncha O'Callaghan
Attendance: 35382
Referee: Cole a.
Points Scorers
Namibia
Tries: Powell C.J. 1
Conv: Wessels E. 1
Ireland
Tries: Dempsey G.T. 1, Horgan S.P. 1, Hickie D.A. 1, Horan M. 1, Miller E.R.P. 2, Quinlan A. 2, Easterby G. 1, Kelly J.P. 1
Conv: O'Gara R.J.R. 7
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