Ireland can block out the noise and triumph in Cardiff
FOCUSED: Captain Jonathan Sexton during the Ireland rugby captain's run at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
If you have spent a small part of the last couple of days picking a combined side from these two Guinness Six Nations rivals there would be short odds on Ireland’s players getting the nod over their direct opponents from Wales.
SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
Pound for pound, in all but a few positions, the current form and skill sets of the Irish would generally edge their Welsh rivals, and yet. Bring that contest to Cardiff, stick a roof on the Principality Stadium and listen to 74,500 voices tear into “Land of My Fathers” and all bets are off.
Throw in the reintroduction of Warren Gatland as the Wales head coach and consider Ireland’s miserable Six Nations record in the Welsh capital of four defeats in a row since their most recent win here in 2013 and you even start to consider the wisdom of Andy Farrell’s side’s odds-on favouritism for Saturday afternoon’s championship opener.
The bookmakers are right to make Ireland favourites, even if they will be without tighthead titan Tadhg Furlong. They are the world number one-ranked team for a reason given the achievements in 2022 and their demeanour at this week’s training camp on Portugal’s Algarve suggests they are not in the mood to rest on their laurels.
The head coach has the bit between his teeth more than ever, his assistants are in awe of his appetite for further success and the players are in determined mood to continue their development under a coaching ticket which has delivered something of a kick up the rear end following the hint of a struggle in beating Australia in the final Test of the year last November 19.
Valuable lessons have been learned and behaviours modified from past setbacks, such as last year’s defeat to the French at Stade de France, when players were overawed by the high-intensity of the crowd before, during and after La Marseillaise and the boost it gave their heroes in blue from the first whistle. Ireland were 10-0 down before they had the chance to draw breath and that experience was referenced several times in the past few days at their Quinta do Lago Campus training base as a valuable staging post in this team’s evolution.
Ireland may have lost the opening Test to the All Blacks last summer but they dominated the opening skirmishes at their fortress Eden Park and their performance over the first 30 minutes before losing captain Johnny Sexton gave the belief and laid the foundations for the historic series win that followed.
The Principality Stadium will be just as intimidating and certainly more raucous than that Auckland citadel but Ireland’s players have learned to stay calm, focused and clear headed as the noise levels rise and the hits come flying in.
Farrell is revelling in the challenge this Six Nations clash is posing his team and he knows what it will take to end Ireland’s barren run in Cardiff, claim an all-important opening win and take some essential momentum into next Saturday’s second-round meeting at home to reigning champions France.
"Being ourselves,” the Ireland boss said. "The old adage of the atmosphere, the occasion, whatever is coming our way... finding a way is something we've been pretty good at in the last 12 months. We'll need to be calm enough, composed enough to be able to do that.
"It's a tough place to go, the Welsh are obviously not just a proud nation, they know a thing or two about how to handle the big occasion.
"I think at the start of a competition it's very hard to get up to be at your best straight away. It's something that we've worked hard on over the last 18 months or so and hopefully we can hit the ground running in that regard.”
Farrell added that being able to play at the high tempo in which his team thrives was also vital, as was the ability to do so without the game becoming a frustratingly stop-start affair dictated to by referee Karl Dickson’s whistle.
“There's no doubt Wales do (want a fast-paced game) as well. No matter what your tactics are, whether you're playing a territorial game when you get the ball in the right parts of the field, you want to play quick.
"It just makes sense, doesn't it, to do that. I think also in any competition we all know that interpretations are going to be white hot at the start of a competition, referee-wise. So hopefully the breakdown will be nice and clean.”
Achieving that is easier said than done but Farrell is hopeful the "honest feedback" he and his coaches delivered to their squad in order to improve from last November’s winning but sometimes disjointed Autumn Nations Series campaign will have been taken on board.
“We lost our way in certain games but the good thing about it is we found a way to get back and win, so getting back in sync a little bit with our attack, showing some good ambition and playing the game that's in front of us is always going to be key.
“But 100 per cent, everyone knows the Six Nations is a war of attrition upfront, set-piece battle, the breakdown is heavily tested. You saw the Toulouse v Munster game, that's the sort of thing that's coming our way.”
Wales versus Ireland promises to be even more ferocious than that Sunday afternoon at Stade Ernest-Wallon but for all the noise, it is Farrell’s men who appear best-placed to block it out and deliver on their considerable strengths.
L Williams (Cardiff); J Adams (Cardiff), G North (Ospreys), J Hawkins (Ospreys), R Dyer (Dragons); D Biggar (Toulon), T Williams (Cardiff); G Thomas (Ospreys), K Owens (Scarlets) – captain, T Francis (Ospreys); A Beard (Ospreys), A W Jones (Ospreys); J Morgan (Ospreys), J Tipuric (Ospreys), T Faletau (Cardiff).
S Baldwin (Ospreys), R Carre (Cardiff), D Lewis (Cardiff), D Jenkins (Exeter), T Reffell (Leicester), R Webb (Ospreys), O Williams (Ospreys), A Cuthbert (Ospreys).
H Keenan (Leinster); M Hansen (Connacht), G Ringrose (Leinster), S McCloskey (Ulster), J Lowe (Leinster); J Sexton (Leinster) - captain, J Gibson-Park (Leinster); A Porter (Leinster), D Sheehan (Leinster), F Bealham (Connacht); T Beirne (Munster), J Ryan (Leinster); P O’Mahony (Munster), J van der Flier (Leinster), C Doris (Leinster).
R Herring (Ulster), C Healy (Leinster), T O’Toole (Ulster), I Henderson (Ulster), J Conan (Leinster), C Murray (Munster), R Byrne (Leinster), B Aki (Connacht).
Karl Dickson (England).
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