Wellington hangover just as painful
That said any hopes and ambitions of a Grand Slam or Triple Crown have evaporated and with thedisadvantage of a six-day turnaround to the French game, things could get even worse. Experience has shown that trips to Paris, where Ireland have only managed to win once in the last 40 years, tend to concentrate the mind. Declan Kidney and his men have a lot of soul searching to dobefore boarding the plane on Friday.
France for their part were asfrustrating as ever to watch against Italy on Saturday and in a tournament that could well be decided by points differential, a winning margin of 18 points against a poor Italian side may let the door open for those yet to face the Azzurri.
Kidney has problems to address, and little time to turn things around.Ireland could well have won this game against a Welsh side that somehow carved out a victory against all the odds. Shorn of their chief ball winners in Alun Wyn Jones and LukeCharteris before the game they somehow manufactured a win that looked extremely unlikely after Tommy Bowe scored with 12 minutes remaining.
Yet Wales at international levelhave developed a resilience that weassociate with Munster and Leinster in the Heineken Cup.
By way of contrast the feel good factor that accompanied the Irish into camp after their European exploits failed to ignite this performance.
Warren Gatland has invested time and energy in making this Welsh side bigger, stronger and faster. In creative terms they are far more potent than Ireland but we knew this coming into this game. What Ireland needed to do was starve them of primarypossession which they succeeded in lineout terms and turn their gargantuan backs with the boot. Unfortunately the home kicking game wasn’t up to the task with a repeat of the aimless punting down the middle of the field that we saw in Wellington reappearing. Ireland’s chasers were given no chance to compete for possession.
The difficulty then was with Wales so well structured in their phase play, Ireland simply couldn’t get the ball back. Wales recycled magnificently, spread the Irish defensive line by using long passes to create holes in themidfield and used the power and pace of Jamie Roberts, Jonathan Davies and the magnificent George North to suck in defenders and offload to greateffect.
North is about to make the type of impact on the game that Jonah Lomu made on the 1995 World Cup. This guy doesn’t celebrate his 20th birthday until after this championship. Gatland promoted him from obscurity at 18 when he scored two tries on his debut against South Africa.Injury thwarted his development until his re-emergence at the World Cup where he had a superb tournament. Yesterday he was just too hot to handle.
Ireland have problems at themoment. Their ability to compete at the breakdown is being compromised without the presence of an out and out No7. Sean O’Brien’s proven ball carrying ability ishindered as he has to spend too much time competing for ball on the deck. It suits the opposition to have him tied into the ruck or maul instead of being utilised as a runner offbroken play. The problem stems from the fact that none of the provinces are playing with a genuine fetcher andtypically the unseen work done by David Wallace is only fully appreciated when he isn’t there. The Irish back row was far more balanced when he was on board alongside Jamie Heaslip and O’Brien with the facility to spring another wrecking ball off the bench in Stephen Ferris.
Wales play to the strengths of their captain Sam Warburton both in attack and defence and he is up there with the likes of Richie McCaw, David Pocock and Thierry Dusautoir as a disruptive force. Given all their injury woes coming into this game to lose Warburton at the break was devastating. Even here Gatland had theforesight to have another out and out openside on the bench in Justin Tipuric to replace his captain.
GAMES such as this are so oftendecided on mistakes ormoments of madness. When Bradley Davies was yellow carded for a dump tackle — that to me looked worse than Warburton’s infamouseffort on Vincent Clerc in the World Cup semi-final — you just felt the game had been handed to Ireland on a plate. Davies, who was extremelyfortunate not to see red and could yet incur the wrath of the citing officer, had been the only source of anylineout possession for Wales as they suffered a serious systems failure out of touch. But Ireland weren’t good enough to close the deal.
The only time Wales produceddecent attacking ball off the tail of the lineout, North was utilised tobulldoze his way through the home midfield to create a second try for Jonathan Davies. One shudders to think what could have happened had the Welsh injuries not robbed them of a fully functioning lineout.
The penalty at the death conceded by Ferris will undoubtedly haunt him but his tackle on Ian Evans was sloppy and in the circumstances of the Bradley Davies incident earlier,careless. What summed up thedifference in class between the sides however was the manner with which Wales got themselves into thatposition in the first place?
Deep in their own twenty two from the restart after North’s spectacular performance was finally rewarded with a try in the corner, Wales displayed all the composure of a Munster side at home to Northampton in the manner with which they retained possession through a remarkable series of mini rucks that propelled them to within 30 metres of the Irish posts. Leigh Halfpenny had the composure with the boot to do what Rhys Priestland had failed to do all afternoon, and put the ball between the sticks.
Ireland will be shattered to lose this game but they can only blamethemselves. Wales opened the door time and again for Ireland but sadly the inventive streak behind the scrum was nowhere to be found when the need was greatest.
