Romania had the wind at their backs in the opening half and led 6-3 thanks to two Petre Mitu penalties but Ireland finally took the lead when Andrew Trimble scored the first of his two tries in the 23^rd minute of the half.

His Ulster colleague Neil Best extended the lead when he skipped through weak Romanian defence in the 38^th minute to leave Ireland in front, 17-6 at the interval.

A knock-on from Romanian full-back Catalin Fercu led to Trimble s second try just after the restart and although Mitu kept the visitors in touch with a brace of penalties, Johnny O Connor again benefitted from poor defence to score the fourth Ireland s try.

After Ireland survived a period of Romanian pressure Geordan Murphy scored in the right hand corner and at that stage Jerry Flannery made his debut for Ireland, on to replace Shane Byrne.

He was joined from the bench by Mick O Driscoll, Ronan O Gara and Peter Stringer but moments later the Romanians might have been considered unlucky not to score the third time the video ref was called to adjudicate - when they drove over the Irish line. Credit however to superb Irish defence to deny the Romanians on each occasion.

Again having withstood the pressure, a Denis Leamy orchestrated breakout ended with a try for replacement Girvan Dempsey to end the scoring despite the Romanians ending the game attacking the Irish line.