Ireland Dominate Wales, but there are Lessons to be Learned.

So, I don’t think anyone expected this game to go exactly the way it did. With all the talk about Welsh provinces struggling, trouble within the WRU, and a few Welsh mainstays injured, everyone knew it wasn’t going to be the most settled Welsh team ever but not quite like this.

Wales’ only points of the game came from an opportunistic moment in which Beirne threw a speculative offload from the ground straight into the hands of Basham who carried easily over the touchline. Taking nothing away from Basham, who to me was a stand-out player for Wales, but they didn’t score a single point as a result of their attack. Only points came from a result of a mistake by Ireland. It’s odd seeing a team that, just a year ago, fought their way to a Championship victory, falling in relatively spectacular fashion in the first game of the series. To me, now Wales have an opportunity: they’re very unlikely to win the tournament, so why not use this to blood some potential players, experiment (like putting one of the best wingers in the world at centre), and just gain something from this other than a tournament win. Now, with that being said, I don’t know much about the Welsh rugby situation, and I know Pivac is not just going to resign himself to losing for the sake of blooding new players, but it seems he has an opportunity to strike a balance somewhere within this.

Ireland, on the other hand, gave great cause for hope. There were a few positives that stuck out but a few things that cause a bit of concern. Firstly, and most obviously, it was a great result. Ireland kept pushing and pushing until the last moment in an attempt to squeeze every point out of Wales that they could. Something some people would call “bastardry” or “relentlessness”. Whatever you call it, that’s what wins games and silverware; something Leinster have become known for. Something that I think is deeply valuable in big games is an early score. Now, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a glorious try worked by a winger playing his first two minutes of international rugby and finished by a chunky, powerful centre, but that’s certainly not a bad way to do it. On the world stage, in front of millions, conceding points in the first few minutes is not going to be highly demoralising is going to give an edge on more than the scoreboard. Ireland did this in the most emphatic way possible. They kept banging on the door and ended the game 29-7 with all tries coming from the backs. Aki opened the books with Conway dotting down twice and Ringrose scoring the last. Sexton’s kicking opened shakily and like the robot he is, he took a second, rebooted and recalibrated, then kicked flawlessly in wind that would blow Tadgh Furlong over. Their attack was so fluid and unpredictable that Wales really struggled, particularly as Ireland targeted the centre channel, capitalising on the somewhat odd squad choice in the number 13 shirt. Johnny Sexton, the aforementioned robot really is not willing to let go of that number 10 shirt. He played some of the best rugby we’ve seen out of him in ages, and he hasn’t exactly ever played bad rugby!

Now, unfortunately, a few negatives. Ireland went into halftime 10-0. That’s not a bad scoreline by any means, but it is relative. Wales didn’t pose much of a threat, allowing Ireland to have 64% possession, and yet that didn’t quite capitalise how they could have. Ireland went from the 3rd minute to the 44th minute without a try. The reason I said they *attempted* the bastardry is because they should have done so much better than they did. They had an inexperienced player in the centre to exploit, they had 9 clean breaks with 22 defenders beaten, they had a vast majority of possession, similarly great territory and they had a Wales player in the bin for 10 minutes. Absolutely, this is enough to beat a Wales team that is clearly struggling and do so with a final score that anyone would be happy with, but I have no doubt Farrell will not have come out of that game completely satisfied, nor will the Prince of Irish rugby, Johnny Sexton. If Ireland doesn’t squeeze every drop out of their opportunities against teams like France then they will struggle. They will need to bring out the relentlessness and crank it up to 11.

It's a lovely position to be in though; a fantastic win that exposed a few lessons that need to be learned and improved on. There could not be a better outcome to an opening match in the glorious Six Nations.