Women's Rugby World Cup 5th place semi-final: Ireland 24-36 Australia
Last updated 22nd Aug 2017
Ireland were beaten 36-24 by Australia in the 5th place semi final of the Women's Rugby World Cup at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast.
It means the host nation will finish their tournament in the 7th place final on Saturday.
Austrlia opened the scoring in the 8th minute with captain Sharni Williams rounding off a move to touch down, but Ireland were soon ahead.
They made the most of their firepower among the forwards, and barged over in the 14th minute with prop Ailis Egan emerging with the ball.
Nore Stapleton stepped up and slotted the conversion.
The scoreboard turnaround put Ireland on the front foot, and they soon went further ahead with a sensational try in the 18th minute.
Outside centre Jenny Murphy spotted space in behind the Aussie backs, and kicked ahead for Alison Millar to give chase.
The winger gathered the ball outside the 22, and had plenty of work to do, dancing past 3 Australian defenders to score.
However, Ireland will perhaps be disappointed with how easily Australia scored their second try.
The most basic backline move off the back of a 29th minute scrum saw them move the ball through the hands, and outside centre Sarah Riordan dived in to score not far from the posts.
It left Ashleigh Hewson with a simple kick to make it 12-12.
Australia then took the lead shortly before the break when prop and player of the match Hilisha Samoa barged over from close range after they had slowly worked their way through the Irish 22. Hewson again added the extras to make it 19-12 at half time.
It didn't take long for them to extend their lead after the interval.
Again they made the hard yards through the forwards, and Millie Boyle was judged to have scored after the ref called on the TMO.
Hewson's subsequent conversion and penalty extended their lead, and effectively killed off any hopes of an Irish recovery.
15 minutes from time, Mahalia Murphy scored under the posts and Hewson added the extras to make it 36-12 to Australia.
Despite heading for defeat, Ireland rallied and managed to reduce the deficit thanks to late tries from Sophie Spence and Paula Fitzpatrick to restore some pride.