Ireland full of praise for ‘outstanding’ Wales after hard-fought 27-17 Six Nations win

DUBLIN – Ireland coach Andy Farrell and his players were full of praise for Wales after the Six Nations strugglers pushed their opponents mightily hard for the second successive week, progress the Welsh captain Dewi Lake described as “monumental”.

The 2021 champions, who have not won a Six Nations game in three years and conceded 102 points in the first two rounds of this campaign, followed up their agonising loss to Scotland two weeks ago by pushing Ireland all the way in the 27-17 loss at Lansdowne Road on March 6.

While Farrell bemoaned his inconsistent side’s lack of game management and propensity to overplay, particularly in failing to add on to an early lead, he credited the bottom-placed Wales with making their life incredibly hard.

Jacob Stockdale and Jack Crowley tries gave the hosts a 12-3 lead after 37 minutes, but Rhys Carre’s try help cut the deficit to just 12-10 by half-time.

Jack Conan and Jamie Osborne crossed the line for Ireland in the second half, with James Botham doing the same for Wales.

“The frustrations were that you don’t get it all your own way in Test matches, and nor should you and that’s all credit to Wales and the way they went about their business. I thought they were outstanding,” Farrell said.

“They were outstanding in defence, hit unbelievably hard and have improved constantly throughout the competition.”

Player of the Match Conan joined Farrell in calling the Welsh performance “brilliant”, although captain Caelan Doris was a little more circumspect, saying Ireland lacked the clinical edge and ruthlessness of the near-perfect display against England last time out.

Doris conceded the Irish had been way off the level they showed in the 42-21 win over England at Twickenham a fortnight ago.

“It was scrappy. We lacked a bit of a clinical edge that we had a few weeks ago,” he said.

Wales host Italy next with a realistic chance of avoiding a third straight winless wooden spoon and leaving their tournament losing streak behind them at 15 games. Captain Lake believes his side are now “massively” improving every week.

“We spoke about the Scotland game being our baseline. We’ve proved to ourselves and we’ve proved to everyone else that we can do it and where we can be at, so we can’t drop below that now,” the Welsh hooker said.

“There are so many positives to take from that game (today). From where we were in Round 1 to where we are now, there’s a stark difference. I think we’ve really given ourselves a platform to build on and we're only going to get better.” REUTERS, AFP