England and Ireland rugby legends return for charity

A crowd of 10,863 kicked off international weekend at The Stoop as greats of English and Irish rugby contested the Stuart Mangan Cup and raised money for causes including the Matt Hampson Trust.

The Irish Paralysed Players Fund and the Forgotten Irish were among the other beneficiaries as former England captain Martin Corry led out an English squad including Jason Leonard, Jason Robinson, Dan Luger and Mark Regan.

The Irish included a fair number of big names themselves including Shane Byrne who captained the side, Rob Henderson, Eric Miller and Paul Burke.

"It's great to see the rugby community come together like this, the fans have turned out in their thousands, the players have turned out. This is what it means to us.", Jason Robinson, lining up for England said prior to the match.

Former England captain Martin Corry hands off an Ireland defender

Robinson himself scored two tries for England but it was the Irish who claimed the victory in a competitive encounter, with Justin Bishop scoring twice in a 17-15 win for the visitors.

It rounded off a fantastic competitive match involving legends of the game, all giving up their time to pull on the jersey once again, all of whom played with a smile on their face.

"Rugby's a big family, we look after our own. Poor unfortunate people have been injured playing rugby and other sports and we would like to support them." Jason Leonard explained before kick off, "This is never going to be the cure to anything as such, but hopefully this can a little way to help along the way."

The charities to benefit from the game are Keith Woods’ Paralysed Rugby Players’ Fund, the Matt Hampson Trust and the IRFU Charitable Trust.

Full photo gallery here
Video round up (from Planet Rugby)

Shane Byrne holds the trophy as both squads pose together at the final whistle

http://www.matthampson.co.uk
http://www.stuartmangan.org