Warren Gatland backs Ireland to make Six Nations history

Warren Gatland backs Ireland to make Six Nations history

Warren Gatland backed Ireland to make Guinness Six Nations history and claim back-to-back Grand Slams following his Wales side’s 31-7 defeat in Dublin on Saturday.

The Wales boss felt the final scoreline at Aviva Stadium did not do his young team justice but Ireland racked up a third successive bonus-point victory and now face England at Twickenham next on March 9 before a final-round home clash with Scotland seven days later.

Tries from Dan Sheehan and James Lowe in the first half helped Ireland to a 17-0 half-time lead before Wales began to make life difficult for the defending champions in the third quarter and claimed a penalty try shortly after the interval. Yet Andy Farrell’s forward replacements did their job in moving the momentum back towards the home side and starting full-back Ciaran Frawley scored Ireland’s third before a late Tadhg Beirne try secured the try bonus point, Jack Crowley’s four conversions and a sixth-minute penalty also contributing to the 24-point win.

Despite a third defeat in a row for Wales in this year’s championship, Gatland was proud of his inexperienced team’s effort and also strong on Ireland’s of making it back-to-back Slams following their 11th consecutive Six Nations victory and 18th home win in succession.

“I think they are capable of doing it,” Gatland said. “They’ve got the experience and the composure and the players who carry on the front foot so they will be a hard team to beat.” That said, Gatland was pleased with the way Wales had limited Ireland’s attacking potency.

“We spoke at half-time that basically they didn’t trouble us in phase play. We conceded off allowing them into our 22 from the lineout and the scrum was under a bit of pressure as well early on.

“We worked very hard all week on identifying them sweeping players around and on the whole we did a very good job on that. That was probably the stuff that was the biggest thing.

“They’ve been clinical in the way they’ve caught teams when they sweep around. When they shorten teams up, teams get defensively too narrow. We worked pretty hard on loosening off defensively and following the numbers, splitting our midfield as well. I thought we did a really good job on that.”

Gatland added: “I think the scoreline at the end probably didn’t reflect the effort we’d put in.

“At 17-7, attacking their 22, we didn’t come away with anything. If we’d come away with something, maybe things might have been closer. We just didn’t get any foothold in the game in that first-half. I thought there were a couple of tough calls against us in that first-half, so it was difficult to get some momentum.

“To be honest, between the two 22s, it’s where they are as a team, winning more collisions and getting more go-forward, but I can’t question the ability of the players and how hard they worked.”

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