Ireland

Great focus ahead of the game, the Ireland squad is looking forward to facing home side PNG Kumuls tomorrow (Nov 5).

This morning’s captain’s run was Ireland’s way of getting into the momentum following the week’s public outreach with National Capital District residents.

Tomorrow’s clash against the PNG LNG Kumuls will determine who ends up in the quarter finals, making it out of the pool matches and PNG hopes to be that team after they overcome this Ireland outfit.

Having scored just 14 points at the 2013 World Cup, the Irish matched that tally inside 20 minutes and then kicked on in the second half after the Azzurri had threatened a comeback with tries either side of the interval. 

"To be fair, that's not a bad crowd in Ireland," says captain Liam Finn.

Finn may or may not surpass Bob Beswick – absent from this tour as his wife is expecting – as Ireland's most capped player during this World Cup tour, with the uncertainty due to the fact that he believes he has more than Beswick's 25 Irish caps already.

"Who's got more? Bob Beswick? I'm sure I've got more," says Finn, who on a number of websites is credited with 24 international caps.

Mark Aston has kept the core squad together that have been a part of the last few European Championships and the players that qualified for the tournament last Autumn.

The evergreen Liam Finn and Scott Grix lead the side as captain and vice-captain with over 20 years of experience now playing for Ireland.

Hosts Ireland won a nail-biting Women's Rugby World Cup Pool C opener against battling Australia in Dublin.

Larissa Muldoon's converted first-half try, against a Mahalia Murphy score, had Ireland 7-5 ahead at the interval.

Shannon Parry's touchdown edged the Wallaroos in front but replacements Ciara Griffin and Sophie Spence crossed to put Ireland on the road to victory.

The 2014 semi-finalists survived a late scare after prop Hilisha Samoa's try was converted by Ashleigh Hewson.

Ireland have moved up one spot following their 50-22 win over Japan while Scotland beat the Wallabies in Sydney 24-19.

Joe Schmidt's Irish side added seven tries to the nine they managed against the USA the week before in Philadelphia as they registered another convincing victory in the second match of their three-game tour of North America and Japan.

Australia are now fourth on the world rankings, just ahead of Scotland.

Scotland leap-frogged South Africa into fifth place.

With leaders Serbia facing Wales in a later kick-off on Sunday, Martin O'Neill's side needed just a point to - temporarily at least - move top of what is proving to be a tightly contested group.

And, despite a flat first-half performance, a late glut of pressure from the hosts resulted in Walters thumping home a deserved equaliser to cancel out Martin Hinteregger's opener.

Shane Duffy thought he had snatched a winner two minutes later, only for the referee to disallow the header for a foul by the defender, who led with a raised arm.

The 38-year-old will become the first gay taoiseach and will also be the country's youngest ever leader.

Mr Varadkar beat his rival, Housing Minister Simon Coveney, with 60% of the votes to lead Fine Gael - the biggest party in the coalition government.

He will succeed Enda Kenny as leader of the centre-right party within weeks.

The former GP is the son of an Irish nurse and a doctor from India and much of the media coverage of his victory has focused on Mr Varadkar's background, age and sexuality.

The Six Nations champions headed to Dublin in search of a record-breaking 19th Test victory only to barely fire a shot as they fell 13-9 to an Ireland side that could have won by much more.

England are attempting to arrange an additional fixture with the All Blacks at Twickenham in November, but media reacted with scorn to their failure to claim a place in history.

Among the words used to describe the display at the Aviva Stadium were "thuggish", "brain dead", "arrogant", "wrecking balls in chains" and "back to square one".

Joe Schmidt's Irish team secured a top seeding for the 2019 World Cup draw as a try by lock Iain Henderson after 23 minutes proved the difference between the sides.

While the Eddie Jones coached England improved after being completely dominated in the first half, they failed to make a serious dent in the Irish defence.

England sealed victory in the tournament last week with a 61-21 thrashing of Scotland, but the Six Nations trophy will be awarded to a downcast English team, the third in 16 years to be denied a grand slam in Dublin on the final day of the tournament.