Ireland 29
Wales 7
WALES WERE MISSING several key men and Ireland were firm favourites but this was still mightly impressive on the opening day of the Six Nations.
Andy Farrell’s side got their title bid up and running with a bonus-point win that saw them physically dominate Wales and shred them at times with their cutting-edge attack.
If anything, it probably should have been an even bigger win. How the full house in Dublin enjoyed this Irish victory despite the second-half rain. The Mexican Waves were going with more than 10 minutes left.
Ireland made it nine consecutive victories as they kept up their momentum from November and confidence will be high heading to Paris next weekend. It will be a far, far tougher test against France but make no mistake about it, this Irish team will be targeting a Grand Slam.
There will be calm and self-critical review of this win, of course. Ireland should have led by more than 10-0 at the half-time break but they spurned a handful of chances in Wales territory.
They got the job done thereafter, aided by Josh Adams’ 10 minutes in the sin bin for a dangerous hit on Ireland captain Johnny Sexton, wing Andrew Conway dotting down two tries during the opening 11 minutes of the second half.
Bundee Aki had scored after just two minutes thanks in part to the impressive start by excellent debutant left wing Mack Hansen, who carried on his Connacht form by brilliantly filling into the role vacated by the injured James Lowe.
Garry Ringrose finished superbly in the second half but this victory was as much about the startling power and skill level of the Irish pack. The front row of Andrew Porter, Rónan Kelleher, and Tadhg Furlong picked up where they left off, Tadhg Beirne was outstanding in the second row, and gainline machine Caelan Doris was perhaps the pick of an excellent back row effort.
Ireland were ultra-disciplined throughout, conceding just four penalties – none in the first half – but the best thing for Farrell and his coaching staff is that there is still room for improvement.
Wales, meanwhile, were very poor on the day after their U20s were hammered by Ireland in Cork. Taine Basham in the back row was one of the few to emerge with credit from this afternoon in Dublin and it’s a worrying outcome for Welsh rugby. They must rally now for the visit of Scotland to Cardiff next weekend.
As opening days go, this was good stuff from Ireland. They have momentum now and a thrilling championship awaits.
Ireland and Hansen started superbly as the drizzle cleared in Dublin, the Connacht wing enjoying an early surge up the left after gathering a deflected Sexton grubber, chipping ahead, and pressuring Louis Rees-Zammit into knocking the ball into touch.
Farrell’s men struck clinically from the ensuing lineout, Doris getting momentum with a big carry off the maul and Furlong coming around the corner to carry before Ireland swung back to the left where Beirne passed out the back to Sexton and he hit Hansen, who lifted a lovely pass over the edge of Wales’ defence to give Aki an easy finish.
Sexton’s conversion had Ireland 7-0 in front just three minutes in and they should have extended that lead soon after only for the out-half to mishit two kickable penalty shots at goal, one from the left of the posts and one from the right.
Ireland’s fluid attack was causing Wales serious problems as they struggled to deal with those link passes out the back from the Irish forwards, with a stunning example from Furlong allowing Sexton to break and hit Conway wide on the right before Wales shot up offside in their scramble.
From under the posts, Sexton made it 10-0 with a quarter of the game gone.
Wales finally enjoyed some possession and territory thereafter but Ireland’s defence was physically dominant as Beirne led a choke tackle turnover, the Irish breakdown competition forced a Welsh knock-on, then Conan earned a jackal turnover penalty.
As the rain came in again nearing half time, Ireland had two more fruitless visits into the Wales 22, the first coming after a beautiful Keenan offload and the second following an Irish scrum penalty on Furlong’s side.
Frustratingly for Ireland, they lacked the accuracy to take advantage, with Gibson-Park passing over the head of Hansen into touch just before the break.
But Wales had a disastrous start to the second half, with Josh Adams caught offside then Will Rowlands giving up a maul penalty to invite Ireland into the left-hand corner. With another penalty advantage playing, Sexton flung a long pass out to Conway, who checked to gather on the bounce and finished superbly past Adams, stretching out his right arm for a TMO-confirmed score.
Sexton converted for 17-0 and was soon the target of a reckless bit of play from Wales centre Adams, who deliberately smashed the Ireland captain after the ball bounced up in the air. His yellow card was thoroughly deserved.
The home side instantly made their numerical advantage count as Hansen’s sharp pass freed Conway up the right before Beirne’s tip-on sent van der Flier scything through. James Ryan should have passed for a try wide on the left only to carry and get stopped just short. But Ireland were calm and with advantage playing, Gibson-Park lifted a nice pass over the top to Conway for his second try in the right corner in 10 minutes.
Sexton curled in another two points from wide out for 24-0 and Ireland nearly had the bonus-point score before the final quarter, only for Doris to get penalised for ‘double banking’ at a close-range maul in the left corner.
Just a minute later, Ireland sealed it as Porter made a strip turnover out on the left, Sexton, Hansen and Aki passed to Ringrose wide on the right and he surged 25 metres upfield and through two despairing tackles attempts for a brilliant finish.
By now, Farrell was emptying the bench and there was annoyance at conceding a late score to the excellent Wales flanker Basham but this was Ireland’s day.
Onwards and quite possibly upwards.
Ireland scorers:
Tries: Bundee Aki, Andrew Conway [2], Garry Ringrose
Conversions: Johnny Sexton [3 from 4]
Penalties: Johnny Sexton [1 from 3]
Wales scorers:
Tries: Taine Basham
Conversions: Callum Sheedy [1 from 1]
IRELAND: Hugo Keenan; Andrew Conway (James Hume ’62), Garry Ringrose, Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen; Johnny Sexton (captain) (Joey Carbery ’64), Jamison Gibson-Park (Conor Murray ’70); Andrew Porter (Cian Healy ’66), Rónan Kelleher (Dan Sheehan ’62), Tadhg Furlong (Finlay Bealham ’53); Tadhg Beirne, James Ryan (Ryan Baird ’66); Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan (Peter O’Mahony ’53).
WALES: Liam Williams; Johnny McNicholl (Owen Watkin ’64), Josh Adams (yellow card ’50), Nick Tompkins, Louis Rees-Zammit; Dan Biggar (captain) (Callum Sheedy ’73), Tomos Williams (Gareth Davies ’58); Wyn Jones (Gareth Thomas ’53), Ryan Elias (Dewi Lake ’53), Tomas Francis (Dillon Lewis ’53); Will Rowlands (Ben Carter ’75), Adam Beard; Ellis Jenkins (Ross Moriarty ’53), Taine Basham, Aaron Wainwright.
Referee: Jaco Peyper [SARU]
Assistant refs: Mathieu Raynal [FFR] and Angus Gardner [RA]
TMO: Stuart Terheege [RFU].
Sounds worrying
@geraldo: he has a point about thr penalty count. When your winning handy enough there’s no excuse to give away penalties.
Hard to stay disciplined and motivated if you are winning by 50pts. The big problem is the overlap with international windows. It effectively means each club has to have two teams. If there were fewer games it would be more competitive. A pool or conference system is the only way to go without asking unions to reduce the number of teams they have.
@Rudiger McMonihan: few clubs lose a whole team to the international windows. Maybe one in each country would lose 15. I think a 2 division league might work but as soon as the SA teams come in it would be them and the 3 Irish sides. So maybe not.
@Chris Mc: I think this year you need to include all four provinces. If Connacht had played all their games they would be second in conference B.
@Chris Mc: no union will ever have relagation, would the FIR, WRU or IRFU risk one or more of their professional teams being 2nd division teams? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Benetton lose as many players as Leinster to international call ups and have nowhere near the same resources. Its little surprise Leinster are walking it against those teams.
@Rudiger McMonihan: think we touched on this before, clubs need the 10/11 home games. The proposed new rugby calendar if it gets agreed will sort it out. With no overlap durning internationals. It has a 29/30 week club season, but I think it would be the end of the HCup. As the French Top 14 takes 29 weeks and if given the choice between changing their league system or leaving the HCup the French would leave the HCup. The Pro 16 and English Prem would have maybe 5 weeks that they could fit a new European rugby cup in (Current HCup, takes 9 weeks), but no way can the French fit in a 29 round league and 9 round HCup in 30 weeks, and if there are no French is it really worth it?
@Kingshu: yeah I said they need to reduce the number of club games. Pre-covid Super rugby teams played far fewer games (16 + 3 knock outs). The best players go on to play internationals after (14 in a normal year). Then the rest play in the mitre cup (10 + 2 KO’s). So everyone gets game time, the calendar is more coherent and the games are more competitive. The way our calendar is set up is ridiculous. There is so much overlap between pro14, Heineken cup and internationals. We bounce between the 3 all year too. Teams dont get enough time together to build momentum and their position on the table is often down to how well their 3rd or 4th choice player is.
@Rudiger McMonihan: The New global calendar proposal
Is
Autumn internationals: October-November
Club and European games: December-July with a 7 week break for
Six Nations: April-May and same time the Rugby Championship: April-May. Players get a break from end of July to start of Oct.
Thats a 30 week club season with 7 week break with no games played durning 6 nations/rugbt championship. I just can’t see the Top 14 fitting their league and Hcup into that window.
@Con Cussed: have they not lost 2 games so far. They are a bit off the top 3 to be fair.
@Kingshu: I am with you on this. The system that has been cobbled together over the years has suited the Irish set-up more than anyone else; its deficiencies are increasingly obvious but it is hard to see that there will be changes that will be beneficial in the round.
The underlying problem is that there are only 2 countries – England and France – with the resources to support a domestic professional ‘club’ set-up. The rest have to rely on subsidies from the mens’ senior international game and an artificial cobbled-together league combining the remaining countries.
For us the real focus of the ‘club’ game is the Heineken Cup, but this can only really exist if the English and French clubs want it to, and only a minority of them are really committed