Why Cardiff holds no fears for the Irish

IN spite of all the cautionary words this week of how dangerous Wales are in Cardiff and how desperate they will be to avoid a whitewash

Unless Ireland can defeat the present Welsh side and do so decisively, they will have little hope of beating a full-strength England at Lansdowne Road tomorrow week and probably even less so of making an impression in the World Cup next autumn. Well and all as we have done to beat Scotland and Italy away and France in Dublin, the case for this Irish team is unproven.

They have yet to produce the kind of controlled performance to keep clearly inferior opposition at bay throughout two of the three games and there were prolonged spells in all of them when you wondered if the team were well short of the desired standard.