Can Gatland's Wales pose a threat in Dublin?
CHALLENGE INCOMING? Wales head coach Warren Gatland during a team run at the Principality Stadium.
Warren Gatland spelled out just where he thinks his Welsh side can hurt Ireland in Dublin this afternoon, laying bare his intentions in his column for a UK daily newspaper this week.
Yet can his team execute and how likely to allow them to will Andy Farrell’s men be?
The Wales boss wants his young side to emulate the All Blacks’ opening salvo against Ireland in last October’s World Cup quarter-final victory at Stade de France.
The Irish were 13-0 down after 20 minutes that night, conceding early penalties at the ruck before wing Leicester Fainga’anuku completed a blistering move after a successful Beauden Barrett chip and charge in midfield.
Ireland got a lot of things wrong that night but they were resilient in clawing their way back to trail just 18-17 at half-time in that game before an eventual 28-24 defeat and they have quickly rebounded in this Six Nations, not least with dominant starts against both France and Italy en route to bonus-point wins in both matches to date.
They took a 10-0 lead after 15 minutes in Marseille in the face of heavy and often illegal French physicality in the opening stages while the Italians never recovered from conceding a seventh minute Jack Crowley try as they slumped to a 36-0 hammering.
This does not look like an Ireland team to be so easily disrupted a second time in four months.
With Ireland’s first-choice full-back Hugo Keenan absent through injury. Gatland has targeted stand-in Ciaran Frawley while also calling out left wing James Lowe for having many strengths but that “aerial dominance is not one of them”.
Nor was Frawley spared, though the former Lions head coach spun a little fake news when he suggested the Irish utility back had predominantly played 10 and 12 for Leinster this season while “in the two games he played at full-back for them, they lost”.
It is true Leinster’s two defeats this season, in the URC at Glasgow and home to Ulster, did see Frawley start both but the province has also won four with him at 15.
An aerial bombardment from Wales looks likely to be Frawley’s biggest challenge this afternoon.
One thing Ireland will not be able to limit is the courage and conviction Gatland has asked from his young team at Aviva Stadium this afternoon. “I am looking for players who love the big moments and the big challenges. That is what top-level sport is about,” he wrote in the .
“I want players who want to land a match-winning drop-goal or make a last-ditch try-saving tackle. I have been asking those questions of them.”
Yet Ireland are not without resolve, nor do they lack ambition and they have already addressed Gatland’s assertions about his team.
“Look, that’s the game, isn’t it? We have a good record, we are playing well,” captain Peter O’Mahony said yesterday.
“We have spoken about it and we have a target on us but that comes with the territory and you have to be cool with that and that you are going to get the best of every team.
“We know when we’re good that we’re going to put teams under pressure and other teams know that now as well. As a result, we expect to get the best of every team and we have no doubt but that we’re going to get the best of Wales tomorrow at 2.15.”
Gatland also has to be prepared to get the best of Ireland.
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