JESSICA O’Mahony shared photos from the Irish team’s celebrations after defeating England – including one of ‘The Queen’ Colleen Farrell.
After trailing 10-5 at half-time, Ireland came roaring back against Andy and Colleen’s native country.
Jessica and Peter back at the team banquet[/caption]
England captain Maro Itoje graciously posed for a photo with Peter’s mam Caroline[/caption]
While Andy is on sabbatical from his role as Ireland boss, he was in attendance among the Aviva Stadium crowd – and received a huge cheer when shown on the big screen at one point.
After the hard-fought 27-22 victory the Irish players and staff wound down with a few well-earned drinks.
They won’t have long to savour the taste of success though as they’ll be back in action next weekend when they head to Murrayfield to face Scotland.
Tries from Jamison Gibson-Park, Bundee Aki, Tadhg Beirne and Dan Sheehan ensured interim coach Simon Easterby has already gotten up and running with a win though.
England scored two tries in the final moments of the game which makes the contest look a far tighter one than it was in reality.
It was done with skill and strength – lots of strength as epitomised by one moment in the second half.
England winger Cadan Murley caught a ball behind his own try line and was picked up by James Lowe and Hugo Keenan and thrown out of play for an Ireland line-out.
The visitors travelled to Dublin confident they had a side that would not be bullied, but it ended up being one that lost its discipline and it cost them.
England conceded 11 penalties over the course of the 80 minutes but, in reality, that figure was far harder as lived offside.
Reflecting on the 80 minutes as a whole, Easterby told RTE: “We had to find a way.
“I thought we played well in patches in the first half, we didn’t quite get our accuracy right, and that’s probably why the scoreline was in their favour.
“I think the first half, it’s first round of the Six Nations, England here in Dublin, it’s always going to be a bit of an arm-wrestle. It’s nothing we didn’t expect.
“We felt at half-time if we did a few things better, that we would get the rewards, and we did that.
“Like I say, our accuracy. We had lots of opportunities in their 22, but didn’t quite make the most of them. They defended well and made it tough for us.
Andrew Porter and wife Elaine at Saturday night’s celebrations[/caption]
Huw Jones dives over for Scotland’s second try in their opener against Italy[/caption]
“I think on reflection we’ll be happy with the way our setpiece went, and we set up some lovely opportunities through that.
“Up until the last couple of minutes, defence was OK. We know we need to be better next weekend.”
Sunday’s 3pm kick-off will be a match-up of 1-0 teams as the Scots saw off Italy 31-19 in Edinburgh.
Looking ahead to their next task, Easterby added: “I think what it does do is it sets us up for what will be a hell of a challenge in Murrayfield.
“It’s never easy going up there, they’re coming off the back of a win as well.
“But we need to make sure we get better at the things we know we can and it will be important that we don’t deviate too far away from what’s worked for us this week.
“But it’s an important place to go and get a result, it’s somewhere where we’ve had a little bit of success in the last few years but we know it’s going to be incredibly tough.”
