Welsh steel puts halt to Irish rugby rising

Wales 23, Ireland 16:

The trick is not to do it too often but even the best teams have to experience its bitter taste every now and again.

How you respond, the sages also tell us, is the real measure of one’s character and, ultimately, greatness and that is the challenge now facing Joe Schmidt and his Ireland players as they head into an RBS 6 Nations finale without a Grand Slam to play for but with a successful title defence still within reach.

Saturday’s defeat, though, will have been a sobering experience. A first loss in 12 months, dreams of a first Slam since 2009 in tatters and beaten all ends up by a well-marshalled and expertly motivated Wales team that bristled with intensity and physicality.

Not bad for a simple Kiwi boy, eh? For the first time in a year, the plaudits do not go to Ireland’s head coach Schmidt but instead to his compatriot and rival, Warren Gatland, who had the last laugh in a week when his character and coaching ability was called into question.

Dismissed by former Irish international Neil Francis as having “the intellectual capacity of a tub of Flora”, the Welsh seized on those words and took them as a national insult to their New Zealand-born, Lions series-winning coach, the last man to engineer a Six Nations Grand Slam. So when the first question from an Irish voice came in the post-match press conference, it was with a satisfied smirk he opened his response with the line: “I’m only a simple Kiwi boy...”

We’ll allow him that and before there is a kneejerk response here to Ireland’s shortcomings at the weekend, it is necessary to remember Schmidt has not become a bad coach overnight any more than his players are a poor team. This was, though, a performance lacking some crucial elements from the ones that had taken them to 10 successive victories over the last 12 months.

Outsmarted in the lineout, outmanoeuvred in the air, unable to unlock an heroic Welsh defence or get on the right side of referee Wayne Barnes just three weeks after their last encounter with the English official — those are a lot of things to get wrong in one match and the result was a loss that removes the possibility of a Grand Slam and throws the championship title race wide open.

England top the Six Nations, level on six points with Ireland and Wales but with better points differential and the luxury of playing last next Saturday, when Wales open in Italy, Ireland go to Scotland and France take on an England side back in the hunt after rebounding from their defeat to the Irish with a win over the Scots.

England’s Dublin demise to an all-conquering Irish side in round three made this a surprising performance from Schmidt’s players, the nine out of 10-scoring individual performances displayed a fortnight previously curiously dropping to sixes, the aerial battle so convincingly won then now such a weakness that the kicking game was virtually abandoned after half-time. Wales attacked Irish strengths, including mastery at the lineout, and the upshot was that Gatland did to Schmidt what the Ireland head coach had done to Stuart Lancaster. Bubbles have been burst. Perhaps we should have seen it coming.

After all, Wales had been mugged in their own backyard here by the English in round one, the confidence engendered by a defeat of South Africa in the autumn that had given them a lightning-fast 10-0 lead on the opening night sapped after half-time by a mighty visiting pack that simply blew the Welsh away at the set-piece and tackle area.

Cue the undoing of English hopes at the Aviva Stadium in round three when Lancaster’s men knew they would be subjected to an aerial bombardment, had trained specifically to deal with it and then failed to respond when those questions were duly asked by the Irish half-backs and their super-efficient chasers.

It was Ireland’s turn for a rude awakening. Saturday saw them stare history in the face just one win away from a national record 11 consecutive wins, and they blinked.

The discipline that was one of the cornerstones of that winning run disintegrated in an opening 13 minutes of collective madness as four penalties were handed to Wales full-back Leigh Halfpenny on a salver as big and shiny as the Triple Crown trophy that will also go back into hiding after this day of reckoning.

Halfpenny kicked Wales into a 12-0 lead and Schmidt was left to rue his team’s inability to play to the referee’s interpretations of the breakdown.

“You’re always going to have frustrations and those frustrations are probably exaggerated when you lose, particularly when you’ve fought your way back into a game you were 12-0 down,” Schmidt said. “To go 12-0 down in a Test match is a bit of a mountain to climb and I felt the endeavour shown, if it could have been matched by accuracy, we might have been able to get the result.”

That Ireland clawed their way back into a tumultuous contest with an atmosphere to match generated by almost 74,000 supporters became equally frustrating for the lack of ruthlessness in converting 64% possession, a dominant scrum and 22 beaten defenders into actual scores, other than the penalty try, converted by Johnny Sexton, that Barnes awarded to make it a 20-16 game with 11 minutes remaining.

By then, the Irish huffed and puffed and been repelled by a phenomenal defensive effort requiring 250 Welsh tackles, the official statistics awarding a staggering 31 of them to lock Luke Charteris alone. It may have been Paul O’Connell’s 100th Test appearance for Ireland and the captain may have put in his customary tireless effort, this time featuring two line breaks but it will be the contributions of the Welsh that live long in the memory.

Their breakthrough came when replacement Scott Williams spied a gap between line shooter Jamie Heaslip and Tommy Bowe to score from close range on 61 minutes. Yet Ireland made it a four-point game at 20-16 eight minutes later when Sexton, marking his 50th cap, converted a penalty try after Ireland drove a maul to the line after the Welsh, having been given a final warning from Barnes, had transgressed yet again.

One more penalty from Halfpenny gave Wales breathing space. A converted try would have salvaged a draw, only for the pattern to resume — Irish endeavour met with Welsh tirelessness and a crucial final contribution from Barnes as he effectively ended the game with a curious penalty against the dominant Ireland scrum five metres from the Welsh line.

It was that sort of day, one to savour for its drama, one to forget for the result. Time to move on to Murrayfield.

WALES: L Halfpenny; G North, J Davies, J Roberts (S Williams, 60), L Williams; D Biggar, R Webb (M Phillips, 69); G Jenkins (R Evans, 40), S Baldwin (R Hibbard, 57; Baldwin 78), S Lee (A Jarvis, 13); L Charteris, A W Jones (J Ball, 72); D Lydiate (J Tipuric, 69), S Warburton – captain, T Faletau.

IRELAND: R Kearney; T Bowe, J Payne, R Henshaw, S Zebo; J Sexton (I Madigan, 74), C Murray (E Reddan, 62); J McGrath (C Healy, 57), R Best (S Cronin, 62), M Ross (M Moore, 62); D Toner (I Henderson, 62), P O’Connell — captain; P O’Mahony, S O’Brien, J Heaslip (J Murphy, 72).

Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)