Defending champions New Zealand maintained their unbeaten record at rugby's junior world championships in Japan, subduing Ireland 17-0 at Nagoya last night.
New Zealand followed their 75- 0 romp over Uruguay in their tournament opener with a far tougher exercise against the Irish - a contest that left players and management unimpressed although the under-20 Six Nations runners-up were kept scoreless.
Inaccurate goal kicking - Tom Taylor, Aaron Cruden and Robbie Robinson missed five attempts between them - poor option taking and staunch Irish defence combined to frustrate New Zealand.
New Zealand scored tries through Winston Stanley in the 54th minute and then capitalised when Ireland lost Nevin Spence to the sinbin, Shaun Treedy profiting from the man advantage a minute after the centre was yellow carded.
Robinson added two conversions, while Cruden had opened the scoring with a 12th minute penalty.
"We are a little bit disappointed, we just made too many errors that put ourselves under a lot of pressure," said New Zealand coach Dave Rennie.
"We had to really scrap and to Ireland's credit they are a very well organised team and made us fight hard all the way.
"I suppose a positive you can take out of it is we won such a physical and hard game and we didn't really play any footy," added captain Cruden.
New Zealand top pool A with nine points and complete their group matches against Argentina on Saturday.
New Zealand 17 (Winston Stanley, Shaun Treedy tries; Aaron Cruden pen, Robbie Robinson 2 con) Ireland 0. Halftime 3-0.
