Ojo seals his record night in Paris with brace of tries
LONDON Irish sealed a memorable bonus point victory at Stade Français.
The Exiles were in dreamland with just 15 minutes on the clock as they crossed the whitewash three times in quick succession to give themselves a commanding 19-0 lead.
Conor Gilsenan dotted down from close range on six minutes following a neat offload from Georgian international back row Lasha Lomidze.
Two minutes later, Irish record breaker Topsy Ojo pounced on a kick-through to mark his momentous evening of becoming Irish’s most capped player with 281 appearances with a converted try and extend Irish’s advantage to 12-0.
Ojo’s evening got even better on 13 minutes, intercepting a looping pass inside his own 22 before sprinting the length of the field to touch down in trademark fashion. Theo Brophy Clews’ conversion made it 19-0 much to the dismay of the Parisian crowd.
Looking to push home their early supremacy, Irish were dealt a blow midway through the first period when Ben Meehan was sin-binned for a professional foul. From the resulting phase of play, Stade No.8 Bakary Meite scooped the ball up from the base of a scrum to dive over. Jules Pilsson’s conversion reduced the arrears to 19-7.
Not deterred by the concession of a try, Irish stood firm to heavy Stade pressure and got their reward for their endeavour just before the break when Meehan dashed in on the blindside. Brophy Clews’ shanked the conversion wide, but the Exiles led 24-7 at the interval.
Nick Kennedy’s men were put under severe pressure in the early exchanges of the second half, but the Parisians could not find a way through a resilient Irish rearguard.
This set the platform for Irish to push home their advantage, and in the final ten minutes of the contest, the visitors struck home three unanswered tries in the shape of Lovejoy Chawatama, Ben Ransom and Scott Steele.