No fear.
Second choice Irish scrum-half versus one of the world’s best opensides.
83 kg vs 103 kg.
Who comes off best? Well, its not who you think.
For the second week in succession, Kieran Marmion was thrust into unfamiliar territory on the wing as Ireland’s backs took a battering at the Aviva.
Andrew Trimble, Jared Payne and Rob Kearney all had to leave the field which meant that a serious re-shuffle had to take place in the Irish backline.
Last week against the All Blacks, Marmion only had to play on the wing for seven minutes, this time around, it was a full 40. Nevertheless, this didn’t thwart the Connacht man as he made six tackles in only one half of rugby.
The main one which stood out was Marmion’s vital hit on Wallabies talisman, David Pocock, which you can see below. There was an Aussie try there for the taking but Marmion was not having it. Not for a second.
Australia were looking to pick up where they had left off at the end of the first half.
As you can see, Pocock does excellently to get the offload away to Henry Speight who touches down in the corner.
However, Marmion does enough to put off the Zimbabwean-born flanker, so that his offload goes forward and the try subsequently disallowed.
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt was also big fan of this hit as he mentioned to Sky Sports post-match:
“The one Pocock threw forward, I thought Kieran Marmion found another 5, 6 or 10 kg’s to hit him with because he’s a very small man on a very powerful man”.
Schmidt did not stop there. In the post-match press conference, the Kiwi gushed:
“Kieran Marmion on the wing… His impact tackle on David Pocock to dislodge the ball forward was phenomenal.”
Not bad from Ireland’s newest winger. Connacht coach Pat Lam, all of a sudden, has options with ‘Marms’.
Fantastic performance and win from @IrishRugby. @FinlayBealham @Ultan_Dillane and our new winger @kieranmarmion all capped. 27-24 #IRLvAUS pic.twitter.com/FndTkJXEPz
— Connacht Rugby (@connachtrugby) November 26, 2016
This is what fronting up looks like.
Dick Clerkin makes his GAA Hour debut to talk about a wonderful career and argue passionately with Colm Parkinson over Sky Sports GAA. Subscribe here on iTunes.
