Burns must wait to join Irish centurion club

Cork Church of Ireland’s Karl Burns earned his 99th Irish cap in an 8-2 demolition of France tonight – but he looks set to have to wait until June to join the exclusive century club, after coach Paul Revington opted to rest him for tomorrow’s rematch (7pm). Revington has chosen to replace Burns and John Jackson with Geoff McCabe and Conor Harte for the latter part of the two-game series, meaning Burns is unlikely to achieve the landmark number until the Celtic Cup at the end of June in Edinburgh. Burns is looking to join fellow Cork-based players Mark and Jason Black of Quins – both now retired from the international scene – and club-mate David Hobbs in breaking the 100-cap barrier.

But he will have already known this eventuality was coming, as Revington had played his hand upon announcing the squads for each game a fortnight ago. Nonetheless, Ronan Gormley had plenty of reason to celebrate last night after marking the start of his regime as full-time skipper with Ireland’s final goal from the penalty spot at Serpentine Avenue. His decision to take the stroke denied team-mate Peter Caruth — who had already scored two stunners from tight angles — the chance to claim hat-trick in doing so, though Alan Sothern had already hit a triple of drag-flicks by that stage in an easy win. Sothern lashed in the first of those early on, but France went 2-1 up via quickfire strikes from Thomas Becuwe and Frederic Soyez on 16 and 20 minutes. However, Ireland –  shorn of Jermyn, Butler, Timmy Cockram and Mikey Watt for a variety of reasons – were put back on track by  Sothern’s second and a stunning roofed reverse from the right of the circle by Graham Shaw. Nonetheless, they continued to mix the sublime with a ridiculous in the circle; Mitch Darling had one howler of a miss while David Hobbs was unable to convert a one-on-one, before Eugene Magee’s drag put more daylight between the sides. Caruth then nabbed his first on 43 minutes, bettering Shaw’s effort with a blinding reverse to the roof of the net from a near-impossible angle. His second – a lovely mid-air take and finish – was sandwiched by Sothern’s third, and with France’s Nicolas Monnier in the sin-bin,  Gormley wasn’t to be denied his chance to mark the start of his full captaincy with a goal from the spot.

Revington was delighted with what he saw during his first game at the helm, but acknowledged there was still work to be done. “This was a nice way for the team to start off together, especially for some of the newer faces in the squad, the leadership team preformed well and I am very pleased,” he said. “Although we won well there are still areas in our game we will be working on, and this French side on a better day would not have conceded as many chances. “However, the goals we scored tonight were well taken and clinical, we gave ourselves the chances and we took them.”