Ireland v Wales talking points: Experienced Irish have too much power and skill

IRELAND host Wales in Round 3 of the Six Nations championship at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday afternoon looking to extend their lead at the top of the table, while also piling the pressure on the other contenders for their hard-won crown.

CONFIDENCE

If this match was decided purely on current confidence levels then you would expect that it would be a complete mismatch.

Ireland are looking to win their second successive Grand Slam and their national side is built around successful Leinster and Munster club sides, whereas Wales are winless, are in rebuild mode, and have a club scene that currently does not look fit for purpose.

Ireland are able to bring young players like Jack Crowley and Joe McCarthy straight into a highly functioning and successful set-up that expects to win every game, which is the perfect environment for any young player to be allowed prosper. Wales find themselves handing the captaincy to a player younger than both of them, in the form of the just-turned-21-year-old Exeter Chiefs lock Dafydd Jenkins.

Jenkins looks a fine player, with a huge career ahead of him in Welsh red, but a player of his age should expect to be shown the ropes by more experienced players around him, rather than be expected to lead them.

Wales have often been a considerable banana skin for Ireland down the years, but since Ireland have won six of the last seven meetings between the nations there now is the feeling that they have gained a stranglehold on the rivalry, and with Ireland being 22-point favourites in the handicap this weekend it is difficult to envisage where a Wales shock may come from.

HISTORY CHASING

Since the genesis of the Six Nations, with the addition of Italy to the ancient tournament in 2000, there have been many Grand Slams won, but no team has ever won successive Grand Slams, with Ireland looking to smash that trend in 2024 with three games to go against Wales, England and Scotland.

From 2015 to 2017 England won 11 successive matches in the championship, which is a Six Nations record. Notably, it was Ireland who halted the sequence in game 12.

12 February, 2022 is the last time Ireland suffered a defeat in the tournament, when they narrowly lost 30-24 to France in Paris, in what was effectively that year’s Grand Slam decider.

Since then they have won ten in a row, which means that they will equal England’s consecutive win record on Saturday should they be victorious. Fittingly, it will be England who would then be the opposition attempting to prevent Ireland setting a new record in Round 4 at Twickenham, although let’s take it one game at a time for now.

REBUILD

Warren Gatland’s Wales are at the beginning of what looks like a long rebuild, where they can expect to have a lot of painful days before the good times return to the Principality.

Only Gareth Thomas and Adam Beard are likely starters in the pack from the Round 1 clash between the sides from twelve months ago, when Ireland won 10-34 in Cardiff, as the Welsh team has been completely gutted in the past year. 

This will be an extremely inexperienced pack that faces Andy Farrell’s side on Saturday and it is difficult to make a case for them matching up against what is a very settled Irish eight.

They did top their pool at the World Cup in France in the autumn, before losing to Argentina in the quarter-final, but there is no denying that they were on the easy side of the draw, so even that form guide has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

While they lost their two opening games to Scotland and England they did this with a -3 points difference, and could easily have pulled both games out of the fire, but then again, there was a reason why they trailed the Scots 0-28 in Cardiff, even if they have to be commended for their comeback.

At present Ireland would seem to be too far down the road for a young Welsh side that are only just starting their own journey.