Rugby World Cup 2011: Kidney happy with Ireland display

Fergus McFadden celebrates his try with Paddy Wallace (12)

Ireland coach Declan Kidney was pleased after his team ran in nine tries in Sunday's 62-12 hammering of Russia in the World Cup game in Rotorua.

"We went asleep in the middle of both halves but we are delighted with the win and to score nine tries," he said.

"We knew they would come at us - we had to go strong at the start of the first half and we did that.

"Sometimes we made hard work for ourselves but the Russian defence is stoic and they scored two good tries."

Stand-in captain Leo Cullen admitted Russia posed Ireland "a lot of problems" despite the wide margin of their Pool C win.

Ireland moved a step closer to the quarter-finals with the bonus-point success at Rotorua International Stadium.

Keith Earls scored two tries while Fergus McFadden, Sean O'Brien, Isaac Boss, Andrew Trimble, Rob Kearney, Shane Jennings and Tony Buckley also crossed.

However, after conceding just 16 points in two previous games they were caught out twice as Vasily Artemyev and Denis Simplikevich scored second-half tries for Russia.

"We tried a few different combinations this week," added Cullen.

"Russia posed us a lot of problems, particularly in the second half obviously getting two tries. But we'll take the win, move on and obviously reassess now as the week goes on."

Cullen admitted it was important to get the result after their sublime defeat of Australia.

"A few guys got opportunities this week to kind of back up the performance of last weekend and it was important we carried on the momentum," he said.

"It's great so many people turned out, the support has been phenomenal everywhere we have been."

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