Ireland U19’s entertained their Welsh counterparts for the second time in the Four Nations competition early on Sunday afternoon at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown, sports complex with Ireland recording a 5 – 3 win in an entertaining game.
It looked as though it was going to be a runaway win for Ireland after they rushed to a 2 – 0 lead in the first quarter thanks to goals from James Maginnis and Max Anderson.
However, Wales managed to regroup and started to put pressure on the Ireland defence in a scoreless second quarter.
The visitors got their breakthrough with a goal from Ben Wall at the start of the third quarter to take the score to 2 -1 in Ireland’s favour, causing both sides to up their efforts as the game became tense.
Wales pulled it back to 2 – 2 through John Bennett and it looked like the game would go into the final quarter with the teams level. However, Ireland managed to ease back in front before the final break with Louie Rowe getting on the score sheet.
Evan Jennings pushed the score on to 4 – 2 in Ireland’s favour at the start of the final quarter and Sam Walker wrapped it up with Ireland’s fifth goal three minutes later.
Wales did respond, in a matter of minutes, with their third goal, this one from Josh Izzard, but Ireland were able to hold them out for the remainder of the game to record a 5 – 3 win.
Squads
| IRELAND | WALES |
|---|---|
| Sean Bateman | Emlyn Oxenham (GK) |
| Ben Whelan | Chris Taylor (GK) |
| Max Anderson | Connor Lasrado |
| Callum Hewat | Sam Humphries |
| James Clark | Nat O’ Dwyer |
| Sam Walker | Josh Izzard |
| Matthew Aughey | Owen Sutton |
| Cian Dorgan | Dafydd Jones |
| Rex Dunlop | Will Couston |
| Josh Filgas | Tomasz Morris |
| James Maginnis | Theo Bancroft |
| Ian Perrott | Ben Wall |
| Conor Irwin | Euan Dyer |
| Evan Jennings | Billy Collins |
| Karl Smyth | Charlie Johnson |
| Louis Rowe | John Bennett |
| Mark Cowan | Thomas Izzard |
| Joe Webb |
