Wales fightback stuns Irish

Mike Phillips scored a controversial try to give Wales a 19-13 victory over Ireland in the RBS Six Nations Championship on Saturday.

The scrum-half was the recipient of a quickly-taken line-out in the Irish 22 and he dashed past the startled opposition defence to put his side in front for the first time on 50 minutes.

Ireland had gone into the break with a 13-9 advantage after an early try from Brian O'Driscoll, but were pointless in the second-half as Wales joined England on six points at the top of the table.

Ireland were forced into a change as early as the first minute when when Eoin Reddan was struck in the face by a clearance from Lee Byrne.

Reddan left the field in a daze to be replaced by Peter Stringer, but the setback barely knocked the visitors off their stride as they surged into the lead less than two minutes later.

With the Welsh defence stretched, Tommy Bowe rounded Alun Wyn Jones and offloaded to an unmarked O'Driscoll who raced over, giving him the championship's try-scoring record of 24 held by Ian Smith, which has stood for 78 years.

Ronan O'Gara reached a milestone of his own when he landed the conversion, becoming only the fifth player to amass 1,000 Test points.

Mitchell off

Leigh Halfpenny scampered free down the right wing but was unable to find his support as Wales countered, and it was then the home side's turn to use their bench with prop Craig Mitchell helped off with a shoulder injury.

The Welsh continued to probe and their pressure was rewarded when James Hook, who moments earlier had seen a penalty come back off an upright, was on target from in front of the posts.

Full-back Luke Fitzgerald executed a crucial tackle on Shane Williams as Wales pounced on an Irish error and launched a swift counter-attack.

The one-way traffic continued with Ireland's indiscipline once again proving costly as another penalty enabled Hook to slash the deficit to a single point.

A turnover and clearance from Gordon D'Arcy prevented a further Welsh attack from developing and it was Ireland who struck next as a collapsed scrum saw O'Gara boot a long-range penalty.

Byrne had to scramble to deal with a clever chip from the Lions fly-half and must have been relieved to see the lack of green shirts pouring down on him.

O'Gara and Halfpenny - from long range - exchanged penalties amid a high octane finish to the first half from Ireland, who saw flanker Sean O'Brien almost breach the whitewash.

Handling errors dogged both sides following rain during the interval and two sliced kicks put Ireland under pressure, but while they were still doing most of the defending, their line faced little real danger.

That changed in the 50th minute, however, when Phillips crossed for a moments after O'Gara had been replaced by Jonathan Sexton.

Sexton's first act was to send a crossfield chip straight into touch, and a quickly-taken line-out by Matthew Rees sent Phillips hurtling down the touchline.

The Lions scrum-half fended off a despairing lunge from Ospreys team-mate Tommy Bowe and touched down with Hook landing the conversion.

Ireland's players were furious, however, claiming the ball used to take the quick line-out was different to the one kicked out by Sexton.

Wrong

Referee Jonathan Kaplan requested confirmation from touch judge Peter Allan, who said it was the same ball, but replays showed the officials were wrong.

Play soon switched to the Welsh 22 where a forward pass from Donncha O'Callaghan foiled a try for Fitzgerald. Wales were penalised for offside but Sexton's miserable introduction to the game continued when he slid the simplest of penalties wide of the right post.

Only superb tackling kept Ireland at bay as they pounded away at the whitewash. A fumble in possession allowed Wales to escape their half and when they did a Hook penalty followed with Irish exasperation at Kaplan's decision-making etched on their faces.

With five minutes to go Ireland were offered another throw of the dice when a penalty was kicked into touch on the Welsh 22. But Paul O'Connell, who had enjoyed an impressive afternoon, knocked on when carrying into contact and Wales escaped again.

A final last-ditch assault followed, however, with waves of attacks stretching the Welsh line to breaking point.

A one-man overlap was squandered when Paddy Wallace opted to step inside instead of passing to Keith Earls and several phases later the ball had been lost, to the delight of a packed Millennium Stadium.