Ireland 27, Wales 12.
Charlie Mulqueen, Croke Park
ON the day that Keith Earls came of age as an international rugby player, scoring two delightful tries and doing a whole lot else right as well, Ireland avenged their Croke Park defeat by Wales two years ago. They put up a highly impressive performance and now go into next Saturday’s final game of the RBS Six Nations Championship against Scotland as red hot favourites for a fifth Triple Crown in seven years.
Declan Kidney again finds himself on the threshold of another major achievement in only his second year as head coach of the Irish team and with a squad of players eminently capable of going on to ever greater things. Wales tried all the knew but their tendency to fall behind early on told against them once again and they found themselves chasing the game, an almost insurmountable task against an Irish side with an almost foolproof defensive plan.
The thunderous roar and standing ovation that greeted Brian O’Driscoll’s appearance for his 100th cap was all you expected although the game still started ten minutes behind schedule due to the build-up of the 82, 000 plus spectators still trying to gain access. Nor did it help the peace of mind of those journalists on deadlines or those catching planes and trains that further valuable time elapsed while President Mary McAleese was introduced to the teams and finally made her way back to her seat in the Hogan Stand and the anthems could be played.
Ireland demonstrated the importance of taking advantage of having a man in the bin when scoring a splendidly taken try in the bin after 26 minutes. Welsh full-back Lee Byrne had just seen yellow for an illegal tackle on O’Driscoll paving the way for the alert Keith Earls to dart in just to the left of the posts. The celebrations had hardly ended when O’Connell broke away from a line-out and passed to O’Leary. We will wonder forever where the Welsh defence vanished to but the livewire scrum-half wasn’t worrying. He scampered away over the 25 metres to touch down and stretch Ireland’s lead to 16-3. Sexton hit the post with the first conversion attempt for which there was little excuse although the second, to be fair, was from the edge of touch. Still, Ireland had chalked up ten points before Byrne’s return and for the fourth successive match, Warren Gatland’s men found themselves with a serious deficit to try and overhaul going into the second half 16-6 in arrears.
It could and should have been worse because Sexton had missed a very kickable penalty and pretty straightforward conversion. One wondered if Ireland would be made to pay for such profligacy or if they would continue to rely on the boot of Stephen Jones for their points.
Some outstanding defensive work by the Irish immediately on the restart culminated in Earls launching a huge clearance kick into the Welsh 22 where Leigh Halfpenny foolishly prevented a quick Irish throw and handed three points on a plate to Sexton. The outstanding Wallace then seemed to be very harshly treated when he stole Welsh possession under his own posts but South African referee Craig Joubert adjudged that he had done so illegally and awarded Jones his third tap over penalty.
The Munster pair O’Leary and Earls were at it again on the hour when the scrum-half, having thrown a dreadful pass to O’Driscoll, gratefully accepted the return before racing away and this delivering a glorious pass to Earls, now operating at second centre. He was never going to be caught and dived over for his second try although once again Sexton was unable to convert. With referee Joubert clearly unhappy with almost every aspect of the Ireland game, penalties were conceded at a disturbing rate. It meant that Jones not alone kept the scoreboard ticking over but that Wales also enjoyed a lot of territorial supremacy,
However, that didn’t make a whole lot of difference. The Irish defensive set-up remained as solid as ever and Sexton duly drove the last nail in their coffin with a smartly taken drop goal.
IRELAND - G. Murphy; T. Bowe, B. O’Donnell, G. D’Arcy, K. Earls; J. Sexton, T. O’Leary; C. Healy, R. Best, J. Hayes, D. O’Callaghan, P. O’Connell capt, S. Ferris, D. O’Callaghan, P. O’Connell capt, S. Ferris, D. Wallace, J. Heaslip.
Replacements: R. Kearney for D’Arcy, injured, 22; T. Buckley for Hayes 73; S. Cronin, L. Cullen for O’Connell, S. Jennings for Best, Ferris, E. Reddn for O’Leary, all 77.
WALES - L. Byrne; L. Halfpenny, J. Hook, J. Roberts, S. Williams; S. Jones, R. Rees; P. James, M. Rees, A. Jones, B. Davies, L. Charteris, J. Thomas, M. Williams, G. Delve.
Replacements: H. Bennett for Rees 56; I. Gough for Davies 58; D. Peel for Rees 61; A. Bishop for Byrne 63; S. Warburton for Williams 65; R. Gill for James 77;
Referee - Craig Joubert (South Africa).
