A bitter moment

By Gary Watton
March 18 2015

Ireland's juggernaut came to a crashing halt in the principality against a disciplined, rock solid Welsh team that had clearly learnt from some of our own recent successes. They say that imitation is a form of flattery, but that will be scant consolation to an Irish team that harboured real hopes of achieving only a third-ever northern hemisphere clean sweep.

Maximum respect must be paid [through gritted teeth] to Wales for bouncing back so well from their first match setback at home to England. They are now seeking to repeat their championship-winning heroics of 2013 when they became Six Nations champions, in spite of losing their opening skirmish, also at home, to Ireland. On that occasion the visitors produced an exhilharating first-half display of running rugby, but the current XV seem less capable of repeating such fireworks. Instead, Joe Schmidt's improving team are effective and functional, but they lack the apparent dynamite to unlock defences and help themselves to many tries. Such was their plight on Saturday past. Instead Wales made the big hits, kept the green hordes at bay, even when the away team were almost camped on their try line, and ultimately took their chance to record a try, thanks to Scott Williams, and kick the necessary penalties, courtesy of the constantly flawless Leigh Halfpenny.

This was a wake-up call for the Oirish who were not accustomed to conceding too many points of late. They must now go to Murrayfield and try [if you excuse the pun] to amass a cricket score against the depleted hosts, thereby obliging England to beat France by an equally wide margin. Earlier, Wales will have the distinct disadvantage of having to go to Rome and probably post at least fifty points in an effort to finish top of the charts. However, as they have proven in recent weeks, the men from the valleys are not to be written off. My money is on England defeating France in the final fixture and achieving revenge on Ireland from last March when the latter narrowly pipped John Bull to the finishing line.  

Nevertheless, the destiny of the championship remains up in the air, and if Ireland can throw off the shackles, then they just might become back-to-back European champions. In doing so, they will redeem themselves for their Cardiff disappointment.

Wales 23 IRELAND 16; at Cardiff; Saturday March the 15th 2015

15 Kearney

14 Bowe

13 Payne

12 Henshaw

11 Zebo

10 Sexton (3 penalties, 1 conversion) 

9 Murray

8 Heaslip

7 O'Brien

6 O'Mahony

5 O'Connell [captain]

4 Toner

3 Ross

2 Best

1 McGrath

SIX NATIONS TABLE:

England 6 points (+37)

IRELAND 6 points (+33)

Wales 6 points (+8)

France 4 points (+22)

Italy 2 points (-79)

Scotland 0 points (-25)