Donal Lenihan: Ireland can keep pace too high for grizzled Wales
ON YOUR MARKS...: The Ireland squad train under a closed roof during their captain's run at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
No sooner had Warren Gatland announced his side for Saturdayâs game in Cardiff, he was back to his old tricks in the subsequent press conference.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
âWeâre Wales. Nobody rates us or gives us any chance of beating the best team in the world at present.â
In the realm of modern professional sport, playing the underdog card is a bit worn out at this stage but, after a very poor run of results recently - losing to Georgia and Italy was always going to catch up with Wayne Pivac - this Welsh squad will be jumping out of their skins to play for Gatland.
Itâs been a horrific two weeks for Welsh rugby since the BBC documentary uncovered a shocking culture of sexism, misogyny and bullying within the WRU. The CEO Steve Phillips has resigned and the spotlight is on Welsh rugby for all the wrong reasons.
After a stint back in New Zealand with Waikato Chiefs, Gatland has returned to a country where the hearts and minds of its sporting public have swung towards the national football team who qualified for the recent World Cup for the first time since 1958. The four Welsh regions are in financial crisis with many players being asked to take drastic pay cuts.
A number will be tempted to move to England or France after the World Cup in order to maximise their earning capacity. As a result Gatland is looking to scrap the rule whereby a player based outside Wales must have earned 60 or more caps before he can be considered for selection. The players will view that as their coach going to bat for them in the corridors of power.
The players need a cause and Gatland is the man to deliver it. Never the greatest technical coach, he excels in changing the mindset of players, creating a positive environment and making players believe they are better than they are.
A key ingredient in that is working the players hard and maximising fitness levels. With little or no time to impact conditioning levels since coming back on board in December, itâs no surprise that Gatland has turned to a familiar and experienced core of players to elicit a quick response and a shock result at the Principality Stadium.
In announcing his first Welsh team since the 2019 World Cup bronze medal game against New Zealand in Japan, Gatland also played a favourite card of his when declaring his hand two days earlier than required by the tournament regulations.
In doing so, the message he wanted to get across to his players is simple. This is the team I believe in and I donât care if the opposition have more time to digest it and prepare accordingly. Only time will tell if many of the trusted gladiators from his previous reign still have what it takes to deliver at this level. Experience is not in short supply with eight of this match-day squad having featured in the 2012 Six Nations campaign.
Taking Lions test appearances into consideration, five of his original starting team had over 100 caps. That has since been reduced to four with the unfortunate withdrawal of Leigh Halfpenny who Gatland recalled to start for the first time since July 2021.
Replacing him is another test Lion and a favourite from the past in the multi-capped Liam Williams despite him having played very little rugby lately. Incredibly Alun Wyn Jones played in Gatlandâs first match in charge of Wales, against England in the opening game of the 2008 tournament, while his new captain, Ken Owens is just a year younger than Johnny Sexton at 36.
On paper, this looks an incredibly grizzled and capable Welsh team. The big question is whether they can still deliver. With four of the front five and six of his starting pack being plucked straight from the Ospreys, Gatland is gambling on the familiarity and understanding within that unit to ask serious questions of their Irish counterparts.
If Leinster were playing the Ospreys in the morning youâd find it hard to find anyone betting against Len Cullenâs men. With five Leinster forwardâs included in Paul O'Connellâs Irish pack, fortified by the in-form Munster duo of Peter O'Mahony and Tadhg Beirne, this is a formidable Irish pack.
Tadhg Furlong is a notable absentee but Connachtâs Finley Bealham is in excellent form of late and performed magnificently when called upon for the entire second half against the powerful Springbok scrum last autumn.
Andy Farrell embraces setbacks, like losing Furlong, in the knowledge that this is exactly what is likely to happen at the knockout phase of a World Cup. He encourages his charges to accept their fate and move on. This Irish pack remains an explosive unit, more than capable of dealing with everything thrown at them.
The Welsh set-piece has been poor of late and Ireland need to expose it. That starts at the scrum where Bealham, in his first Six Nations start, will be tasked with attacking a comparative rookie in Ospreys loosehead Gareth Thomas.
Beirne and James Ryan find themselves against a second-row pairing in Jones and Adam Beard who featured together in the deciding third test for the British and Irish Lions against South Africa 18 months ago when Beard was included on the Lions bench at the expense of Beirne.
The Irish duo will be very keen to set the record straight on that front in a line-out confrontation that will go a long way towards deciding this game. However, the most decisive battle will take place around the breakdown, where the Welsh back row have been tasked with causing havoc.
If this was an episode from , the task set by Gatland for this Welsh team before the tape exploded in smoke is to âkill Irish momentumâ. That starts at the breakdown.
In selecting a back row of Justin Tipuric, Taulipe Faletau and Jac Morgan, Gatland has sacrificed height at the tail of the lineout for a greater presence on the deck and a more explosive physical dimension. With little time to prepare, the messages from the new coaching ticket will be clear.
Gatland likes to simplify things for his players. He will demand an increased level of physicality on the gain line, dynamic ball carrying from the likes of Morgan, massive line speed in defence, a frenzied work rate that was noticeably missing in the shock defeat to Georgia, along with more accuracy and intensity to their kick chase. The Irish back three are in for a busy afternoon.
Having worked closely with Gatland on the 2013 and 2017 Lions tours, Farrell is in a great position to anticipate whatâs coming down the line and prepare accordingly. Every side tries to bully Ireland up front and pummel them in the contact area.
In the wake of defeating New Zealand in the second test in Dunedin, the word all week in the buildup to the series-deciding third test was that the All Blacks would beat Ireland up. Farrell knew what was coming. Ireland delivered their best half of rugby of the professional era from the off in Wellington.
With that in the memory bank and ideal preparations in the Algarve, the challenge for Ireland is to hit the ground running and play at a pace, with an accuracy and intensity that this ageing Welsh side finds difficult to live with.
Bringing physicality isnât just the preserve of the Welsh. Stuart McCluskey started all three November internationals and is backed to continue, in the absence of Robbie Henshaw, ahead of Bundee Aki. Farrell is backing him. Opposite the Ulster man on Saturday is 20-year-old Joe Hawkins with just one cap behind him. If McCluskey succeeds in making early dents in the Welsh midfield, the returning Johnny Sexton has the rugby smarts to exploit any defensive holes in the knowledge that Aki is available off the bench to create even more havoc in the final quarter.
If Ireland have aspirations to win a World Cup, this is the type of challenge they must be capable of overcoming. With a more settled team, a more established game plan and a team brimful of talent, anything other than an Irish win to launch the campaign would be a major shock.
