Tadhg Beirne: Ireland need to deal with 'pressures' of Cardiff occasion 

Forewarned is forearmed. 

Tadhg Beirne wants Ireland’s younger players to prepare for the assault on the senses awaiting them at a sold-out Principality Stadium when they face Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.

SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2023

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 2023

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

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The Welsh capital has not been a happy hunting ground for the Irish in recent years with the most recent away win in the Guinness Six Nations coming back in 2013 when Brian O’Driscoll led Declan Kidney’s side to a 30-18 victory.

Four successive defeats have followed with Beirne making a losing Ireland debut in Cardiff in 2019 as Wales claimed the Grand Slam with a 20-7 win. The 21-16 loss in 2021 came having seen Peter O’Mahony sent off after just 13 minutes and significantly was played behind closed doors during Covid restrictions on public gatherings.

This means many of the likely Ireland players set to be on duty this weekend will not have experienced the red-hot atmosphere of facing a Wales team roared on by 80,000 supporters, particularly if the stadium roof is closed.

“I think it’s a big occasion,” Ireland forward Beirne said on Tuesday.

“We’ve spoken about that this week, about how big an occasion it can be, not to be shocked by the noise, by the intensity that they can bring from being on at home. That’s on us, to deal with those pressures.

“In the past, in the last couple of times I’ve played there, my first cap in the Six Nations was there and unfortunately it didn’t go particularly well, they ended up winning a Grand Slam in the last game of the season. That was my first experience of it and I’m not going to lie, it really shocked me in terms of noise level, just the intensity of the game.

“So I think it’s important for us to, you know, anyone who hasn’t played there before, making them aware of how intense this game will be and how good Wales can be at home. If we can go in ready and prepared for that then I think we’ll be in a very good place.” 

Beirne, who enjoyed two successful seasons in Wales with Scarlets from 2016 to 2018 before returning to Ireland with Munster, also has bad memories of his second Six Nations visit to Cardiff in 2021 but says that game provided Andy Farrell’s men with valuable lessons that make that game a significant reference point for the world number one-ranked side.

“Massive lessons learned, the lock/flanker said. “We lost Pete early on in that game and we showed a lot of character to stay in the game and put ourselves in a position to almost rob it back at the end and I think we learned a lot from that game.

“There were moments in that game that we just knocked off and we let them back into the game when we didn’t need to… when we were exiting our 22 and forcing a few things and making silly errors there.

“I feel like we’ve learned and we’ve come a long way since that day. I think if you watch that game and you compare that to how we play now, we’ve come a long way.

“Someone made the joke in here, ‘if you make a mistake how long does it last?’ and one of the lads said ’30, 40 years’ but in the moment you have to move on pretty quickly but that will always probably sit in the back of my mind because that was one of those games that we could have won but we didn’t so you just have to move on.”