Ireland's Under-21s held on for a narrow 13-12 victory over France 13-12 at Musgrave Park this evening. Queens University Belfast full-back Tommy Bowe was the Irish hero with both tries, while Michael Rainey added a penalty to give the home side points against a strong French side whose scores came from Phillipe Grand Claude and Pierre Emmanuel Garcia, with Benoit Baby adding one conversion.
Two tries from Ulsterman Tommy Bowe gave Ireland Under-21s a narrow 13-12 victory over their French counterparts at Musgrave Park. The Queen's University full-back scored either side of half-time to recover from a 7-0 lead the French had built thanks to a 16th-minute converted try from Jean-Philippe Grandclaude.
Bowe struck in first-half injury-time with a try in the right corner to leave the interval score at 7-5 to the visitors and followed it up with an intercepted breakaway try nine minutes after the restart. Michael Rainey sent over a 62nd-minute penalty to extend the lead and the French initially failed to conjure up a response, fly-half Benoit Baby missing two second-half penalties.
There were some jitters, however, when replacement Pierre Garcia crashed over in injury-time to close the gap to 13-12 but Yannick Laforgue missed the touchline conversion and the Irish survived.
