The home side led with 13 minutes left at the Jamor Stadium in Lisbon, but the visitors battled back to secure a crucial triumph. Portugal will be kicking themselves after losing this one, they were certainly not helped by losing three men to the sin-bin at various times during the game.
They have now played well in patches against Georgia and Romania, but lost two from two and the losing bonus point from this one will mean little right now. Romania started well and stand-off Tudor Bolder nearly set winger Ionut Dumitru in at the corner with a nice looping pass. It was just out of his reach, but referee Luc Ramos brought play back for an earlier penalty and Portugal second-row Jose de Andade was yellow carded. Romania centre Florian Vlaicu kicked the three points and that put his side ahead and made sure he become just the seventh man in history to go over the 1, Test points mark.
It was a cracker as well, some great passing interplay seeing full-back Dany Antunes over for the five points. Scrum-half Samuel Marques converted to make it With de Andade back on the pitch, the Portuguese scrum started to show some of their strength and they won a kickable penalty.
Marques kicked it to make it Romania pride themselves on their forward power though and giving away that penalty clearly annoyed them. Four minutes later they won a scrum penalty of their own and Vlaicu kicked it over to make it after the first quarter of the contest. Two minutes later it was Romania who were going down to 14 men, hooker Eugen Capatina sin-binned after he tackled Marques too early after the home number nine had taken a quick tap.
From the resultant defensive set on their own try line the shorthanded Romanians managed to get a turnover and cleared the ball. And in the 29 th minute the visitors hauled themselves back to just one point behind at when Vlaicu kicked his third penalty. It was just as well worked as the first, Marques with the final inside pass to his stand-off Jeromino Portela who went in under the posts. Marques converted. Their lead of lasted until the interval, even though in the last few minutes of the half Romania were camped on the Portugal line.
