By Mally (31/03/03)
March 31 2003

Newcastle Falcons' captain Jonny Wilkinson picked up the RBS Man of the Match award as England finally claimed the Grand Slam they had been seeking for so long. England won in style, beating Ireland by 36 points, running in five tries and preventing the men in green from crossing the try-line once.

This was the best England performance of the tournament and Jonny Wilkinson was in fine form, thoroughly deserving the Man of the Match award. Wilko ran the show, scoring 15 points in the course of the match, including two drop goals (one off each foot!), and was awesome in defense. The picture of him dumping Justin Bishop, the Ireland no. 14, to the ground is featured in many of the match reports!

However while this was England's day the first points on the board were Ireland's as a David Humphreys drop goal opened the scoring. Playing into the wind in the first half, England were competing against an Ireland team, which started superbly. Throughout the first half it looked like this was going to be the close match that everyone had predicted. Matt Dawson broke from a scrum 20 yards out, he off loaded to Lawrence Dallaglio who dived over for the first try of the match. A conversion by Jonny Wilkinson put England ahead 3 - 7.

Ireland reduced the gap to just one point as Humphreys slotted a penalty. Jonny Wilkinson negated the penalty with a drop goal off his right foot, then stretched the gap further with another drop goal, this time off his left foot. The half time score stood Ireland 6 - England 13.

Shortly after the start ofthe second half Wilkinson gave Newcastle Falcons fans a fright, going down on the deck clutching his shoulder. Thoughts of the South Africa match in the autumn and Wilko's subsequent lay-off came to mind as he lay on the deck clutching his shoulder. There seemed to be some confusion as to whether Jonny was coming off or not as he appeared to look across to the bench, indicate his shoulder and ask what was going on. Just seconds later he slotted a beautiful drop goal, only to have it disallowed by the referee for an earlier offence spotted by the touch judge.

A few minutes later Wilkinson was forced to go off to the blood bin and Paul Grayson came on as his replacement.

Bath's Mike Tindall ran a beautiful line to score, and Grayson converted putting England 14 points ahead. By this point England had pretty much wrapped the game up, Ireland were unable to break through the excellent England defence. Will Greenwood was bundled over the line by the forwards for England's third try, which Wilkinson converted taking the score to Ireland 6 - England 27.

Wilkinson will no doubt have words with Will Greenwood, who strolled over the line and planted the ball by the corner flag (!) for his second try of the match, making life hard for Jonny, who narrowly missed the touch line conversion.

A penalty and then Dan Luger's try in injury time wrapped up the match. Final score: Ireland 6 - England 42.

Jonny Wilkinson was deservedly the Man of the Match, when he plays well England play well. Lawrence Dallaglio had a good game, as did Mike Tindall, and as a whole the England forwards excelled themselves giving Dawson And Wilkinson a platform to work off.

The Teams:

Ireland:

G Murphy (Leicester); J Bishop (London Irish), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), K Maggs (Bath), D Hickie (Leinster); D Humphreys (Ulster), P Stringer (Munster); M Horan (Munster), S Byrne (Leinster), J Hayes (Munster), M O'Kelly (Leinster), G Longwell (Ulster), V Costello (Leinster), K Gleeson (Leinster), A Foley (Munster).

Replacements:

F Sheahan (Munster), J Fitzpatrick (Ulster), P O'Connell (Munster), A Quinlan (Munster), G Easterby (Llanelli), R O'Gara (Munster), G Dempsey (Leinster).

England:

Josh Lewsey (Wasps), Jason Robinson (Sale), Will Greenwood (Harlequins), Mike Tindall (Bath), Ben Cohen (Northampton), Jonny Wilkinson (Newcastle vice-captain), Matt Dawson (Northampton ), Graham Rowntree (Leicester), Steve Thompson (Northampton ), Jason Leonard (Harlequins), Martin Johnson (Leicester, captain), Ben Kay (Leicester), Richard Hill (Saracens), Neil Back (Leicester), Lawrence Dallaglio (Wasps)

Replacements:

Dorian West (Leicester), Trevor Woodman (Gloucester), Danny Grewcock (Bath), Joe Worsley (London Wasps), Kyran Bracken (Saracens), Paul Grayson (Northampton), Dan Luger (Harlequins).