Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Rory: His Stock will rise & rise
RORY BEST paid tribute to Ireland’s latest young gun Jacob Stockdale after an outstanding home Test debut.
The 21-year-old capped a great display with a try in Ireland’s win last night but Best is already an admirer of the big youngster, who has frightening potential.
“He’s doing really well, he definitely grew into the game as it went on and it’s tough playing your first game at home against one of the southern hemisphere sides,” said skipper Best.
“What’s impressive is that people know about him now and he has to keep improving, and he’s doing that.”
Joe Schmidt admits he wasn’t expecting his side to pull away at a canter from the Springboks.
Ireland blew the visitors out of the water with three tries in the last 10 minutes at the Aviva Stadium and recorded an impressive 38-3 victory.
Asked if he saw that coming, Schmidt replied: “No, not at all.
“In the last four Test matches we’ve played v SA it’s been one or two score margins, and the score flattered us a bit.”
Schmidt confirmed that Peter O’Mahony sustained a torn ear and confirmed he will mix and match for next Saturday’s clash with Fiji.
“Everyone else pretty well came through okay. It gives us an opportunity to mix the team up a little bit,” he said. AUSTRALIA won at the Millennium Stadium to continue their dominance over Warren Gatland’s Wales.
The visitors scored tries through Tatafu Polota-Nau, Adam Coleman, Michael Hooper and Kurtley Beale as they withstood some intense pressure from Wales, whose tries came via Steff Evans and Hallam Amos.
It was a 13th straight win for the Wallabies over the Welsh, who they will meet again in the pool stages of the next global championship in Japan in two years’ time.
Wales coach Gatland, back at the helm of the side after his spell with the British and Irish
Lions, had said in the week that he believed his side could win the World Cup, but on this evidence they will need to be more clinical with ball in hand.
Gatland said: “We tried to force too many passes and offloads but it’s what we’ve been encouraging the players to do.”
Australia showed muscle among the forwards for the opening try as they claimed a lineout 10 yards from the