Peter O’Mahony: 'Today was about putting some pride back in the Ireland jersey'

Peter O’Mahony said his team had put some pride back in the Ireland jersey after he captained the side to a much-needed 22-15 victory over Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.

Two first-half tries from Jacob Stockdale and a second-half penalty try on the back of prolonged Irish scrum dominance built a 22-3 lead for Joe Schmidt’s side a week on from their record 57-15 defeat to England at Twickenham. It was just about enough to hold off a strong Welsh rally in their head coach Warren Gatland’s 67th and final home game at the Principality Stadium.

Ireland were under the cosh for much of the last quarter with Owen Lane and Rhys Patchell’s converted tries closing the gap but captain O’Mahony praised his squad’s rebound from the Twickenham meltdown, when the Irish leaked eight tries, missed 38 tackles and lost six lineouts, as they ended an 11-game unbeaten home run for the top-ranked side in the world.

“It was a rough week, I’ll be honest. We knew we needed a performance. It’s never an easy task, wasn’t about the result, it was about the performance.

“It's good to get some things back on track, defensively we were good. We’ll certainly take a win in Cardiff.

“That (Wales' home record) says a lot, it shows how good Wales have been and it’s a credit to them. We know how difficult it is to come and get a result.

“But today was about putting some pride back in the Ireland jersey, I felt we did that.

“Our set-piece was below average last week and, again, we know the quality Wales have so we needed to be right. It was certainly a step forward.”

O’Mahony’s assessment was echoed by head coach Schmidt, who said: “To be able to bank on our set-piece, our set-piece was much improved. We lost a lineout but our scrum was pretty strong and our defence as well.

“We probably only had a third of the ball in the first-half, in the game really, and territory-wise we weren’t dominant either.

“In the first-half maybe we slipped off four or five tackles, but we’d a lot of effective tackles. A lot of guys connecting up and doing a good job. So, from that perspective, there were some positives.”

Schmidt and his coaching staff now have the task of trimming the Ireland squad from 40 to 31 ahead of Monday’s World Cup tournament deadline, 20 days out from their opening pool game against Scotland in Yokohama.

“We’ll go back and have a look at (the performance against Wales),” Schmidt said. “Certainly, we’ll be as forensic as we can in looking back at it and discussing it as coaches over the next day and bit really.

“We’ll have a look this evening, get together tomorrow afternoon/evening and we’ve a bit of time on Monday morning before we’ve to make some decisions.”

The Ireland boss reported no new injuries to his squad, and although prop Dave Kilcoyne did not return from a 45th minute Head Injury Assessment it appears he was due to be replaced with the rest of the front row at around 50 minutes.

Ireland have one more warm-up game before heading to Japan on September 11, when Wales go to Dublin for a return fixture in Dublin on September 7 with both head coaches agreeing they will field full-strength sides at the Aviva Stadium.