The Ireland Wolfhounds fairytale 2008 World Cup campaign came to an end on the Gold Coast tonight, going down to Fiji 30-14 in the tournament's semi-final qualifier.
 
The men in green matched it with the Fijians in the first half, but spent the bulk of the second stanza defending, with the Bati enjoying the weight of possession.
 
But the Irish never gave up, scoring the last try of the match, through Damien Blanch who picked up his second try of the night, and his fifth of the tournament with just over a minute left on the clock.
 
After the match, Wolfhounds captain Scott Grix was unable to contain his disappointment at bowing out of the tournament and missing out on an historic clash with Australia.
 
"I think all the boys - come tomorrow - will say it's been a pretty good trip, but right now I think we're all just devastated.
 
"We don't want people coming out saying 'you had a good crack' because we're better than that. We're all really disappointed we weren't able to make it through to the semi-finals", Grix said.
 
While sharing in the disappointment, Wolfhounds coach Andy Kelly couldn't fault the effort of his players.
 
"Even in defeat I'm proud of the guys. I don't know what the stats will be, but I reckon we probably defended 70% of the game, and we defended manfully right the way through. And after all that we still had the energy to score the final try.
 
"There was no faulting our spirit, but in the end spirit wasn't enough. Full credit to the Fijians they got everything right. They starved us of ball and probably cut us up a little in the areas in which we've been strong", Kelly said.
 
Despite the defeat, Kelly said the Irish performance at the World Cup had laid a solid platform for the future growth of the game in the Emerald Isle.
 
"We've represented Ireland exceptionally well in this tournament, but now we need to capitalise on this performance and make ourselves even stronger. I think we need to investigate the viability of a National League side, based in Ireland, to ensure we can produce the sort of players who can cope with this level of football.
 
"On top of that we need more regular international fixtures. If we can play more matches of this caliber, I'm certain we can get beyond where we have this time around", Kelly said.

Source: Darren Fylnn