WALES rattled Ireland in the second half but ultimately fell to their 10th defeat in 11 Six Nations matches in Dublin yesterday as Andy Farrell’s Ireland stayed on track for back-to-back Grand Slams.
Farrell hailed the resilience his players showed to find a way to win. He said: “If you fast-forward right to the end result and then work our way back, I thought we was tenacious to be able to get to that point, a 31-7 win with a bonus point.
“There was all sorts of stuff going on in that game. Some of it was our own doing but most of it was because we played against a tenacious Welsh side as well. So congratulations to them, but we stuck at it and brought them down in the end.”
Wales head coach Warren Gatland said: “They outmuscled us a little bit with the collisions and I thought at 17-7 if we scored we had a chance.
“That is a big part of the learning for us going forward. Ireland thoroughly deserved to win with the quality they have got. It takes time, young guys are learning as they go. It was a big step up. We will go back and train ahead of France.”
With England losing at Murrayfield, the expectation will be that Ireland will have to play better at Twickenham in a fortnight but Farrell said: “I can’t answer that because we wanted to be better today, but the opposition always have a say in that, and Wales certainly did.
Farrell pleased to see Ireland resilience
“For the dominance that we had in the scrum in the first half, I felt we could have had a bit of a better lead going into halftime. But coming out in the second half I thought we were in the right place. But it was penalties all over the place and it was a bit stop-start, but we found our way again and found a way to get back going and get the result we were after.”
Italian referee Andrea Piardi ruled a 9-4 penalty count in the first-half in Ireland’s favour but in the se
