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Ireland 27-12 Wales | Six Nations Championship match report
March 14, 2010
Ireland 27-12 Wales
One of the accepted verities of this Six Nations Championship is that the Irish pack, while star-studded at the back, is under-powered at the front.
There were moments in the defeat in Paris when that seemed so but the weakness was less evident against England at Twickenham, when John Hayes crowned his 100th game with a strong, silent performance at No3. The calumny was laid to rest in Dublin on Saturday. Certainly it is a misconception Scotland will dismiss when they travel to Croke Park for Ireland's farewell to the hallowed Gaelic turf this weekend, a game that could secure Ireland a fifth Triple Crown in seven seasons.
Nor is it a notion that occurred to the 20-stone Ospreys prop Adam Jones. When the Welsh scrum crumbled in the face of an Irish heave inches from their own line, to deny the visitors a try that would have dragged them to within three points, he knew the game was up.
"We had two [scrums] on the bounce and were on top of them," Jones said of the dramatic sequence of re-sets early in the second half, when a trademark comeback was a possibility. "As the ball came in, it bobbled around a bit. To be fair to Hayes, they put the shove on at just the right time. [Otherwise] we could have gone back to 16-13 and it would have been game on. But that was it, right then."
Succinctly put: Hayes, the Bull, had defined the gaping difference between the teams: discipline. Had the Irish forwards mistimed the shove after two collapses, a penalty try was a near certainty under the hard gaze of the South African referee, Craig Joubert. But they turned it over and Jonny Sexton cleared with his best kick of a poor afternoon with the boot.
Declan Kidney and Warren Gatland, the opposing coaches, agreed it was the turning point. More so than some games, given the pre-match shenanigans, this was a contest about the generals as much as the foot soldiers. Kidney, not given to flamboyant celebration, struggled to hide his contentment. Of the many places to lay credit for Ireland's rehabilitation after their stumble in France, few are worthier than the shiny pate of the former maths teacher from Cork.
The coach who has elevated inscrutability to an art would not be moved to anything more than humble acknowledgment of a job well done. He had declined beforehand to clobber Gatland for his livid response to being compared to a "menopausal warthog" and would not gloat afterwards. Gatland fielded questions about his team's obvious shortcomings – lack of depth, lack of concentration, lack of points – with forbearance.
Brian O'Driscoll, while said by many not to have shone in his 100th appearance, contributed to the second Keith Earls try with a wondrously dextrous recovery of a difficult pass to free Tomás O'Leary. He was also at the core of an outstanding defensive display. Against England they made 100 tackles and missed one; here they put in 121 and missed nine.
All of which made Ireland's use of their ball more impressive. In a first half, when they stole four throw-ins and generally rocked too hard for Joubert at the ruck, Earls opened up Wales like an old can of tuna after 26 minutes, followed within four minutes by O'Leary. Each score found fragility at the edge of the 10 channel, normally not an area of concern for Wales.
Gatland's team have much to worry about; Italy, humbled by France yesterday, might pay for their frustrations. Ireland, meanwhile, prepare for Scotland in the highest of spirits.
Ireland Murphy (Leicester); Bowe (Ospreys), O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), D'Arcy (Leinster; Kearney, Leinster, 23), Earls (Munster; O'Gara, Munster, 77); Sexton (Leinster), O'Leary (Munster; Reddan, Leinster, 78); Healy (Leinster), Best (Ulster), Hayes (Munster; Buckley, Munster, 73), O'Callaghan (Munster), O'Connell (Munster; Cullen, Leinster, 78), Ferris (Ulster; Jennings, Leinster, 78), Wallace (Munster), Heaslip (Leinster).
Tries Earls 2, O'Leary Pens Sexton 3 Drop goal Sexton.
Wales Byrne (Ospreys; Bishop, Ospreys, 63); Halfpenny (Blues), Hook (Ospreys), Roberts (Blues), S Williams (Ospreys); S Jones (Scarlets), R Rees (Blues; Peel, Sale, 61); James (Ospreys; Gill, Saracens, 77), M Rees (Scarlets; Bennett, Ospreys, 56), A Jones (Ospreys), Davies (Blues; Gough, Ospreys, 59), Charteris (Dragons), Thomas (Ospreys), M Williams (Blues, capt; Warburton, Blues, 66), Delve (Gloucester).
Pens S Jones 4.
Sin-bin Byrne, 24.
Referee C Joubert (South Africa) Attendance 81,340.
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