Five Super League stars feature in Ireland victory over Wales as Hull FC man scores first international try

Ireland avenged last weekend’s heavy defeat to Wales by picking up a big victory of their own, as the Wolfhounds hammered their Celtic opponents in Featherstone on Saturday.

Five Super League stars were in the Irish 17 as head coach Ged Corcoran watched his side respond superbly to last week’s 24-0 defeat to the Welsh to run out 38-12 victors in West Yorkshire.

Huddersfield winger Connor Carr was one of four Giants players on show, along with team-mates Harry Rushton, George King and Aidan McGowan. Warrington forward Joe Philbin was the other representative from Super League clubs.

Carr scored twice in the first half as the Irish romped out into a 26-0 lead, with Dan Corcoran, Brendan O’Hagan and Swinton’s Aaron Lynch also crossing for tries on a thoroughly successful afternoon for the Wolfhounds.

“I’m extremely pleased, I knew the performance was there, we just left it on the bus last week,” Ireland head coach Corcoran said.

“We spoke about it in depth, and the result is because the lads were determined to fix things up. We’ve got a couple of things in mind for next year, but we need an active schedule for the senior men for the next 36 months and we’ll be talking about that in the next few weeks.”

A try from Owen Restall which was converted by Matty Fozard reducing the deficit to 26-6 at half-time but O’Hagen’s second try after the restart emphasised Ireland’s dominance once again.

Hull FC hooker Denive Balmforth scored his first international try as a consolation for Wales, but Ireland rounded off the scoring with Lewis Wing’s late try.

“I was really disappointed with the first half, we didn’t get ourselves a chance,” claimed Wales head coach Paul Berry. “We needed half time to have a reset and talk about what we’d practiced.

“Our inexperience showed and after that we looked much better. We’ve deliberately picked a group of players that are going to be with us for the next three to four years and while the performance wasn’t the best, there’s plenty of positives including two 17-year-olds who did not look out of place.”