There will be heated conversations about how Ireland played against Wales. “Got ourselves out of a hole” is how Simon Easterby described it. Many people might also agree that of the three matches the Irish team has played so far in this year’s Six Nations Championship, the game against Wales has been the poorest performance. The dreaded Welsh bounce people had been talking about midweek after Warren Gatland departed happened and Ireland at times seemed ill-prepared, especially in the first half, where the scrum failure and surge in crowd participation gave Wales platforms that they could not have foreseen.
Those platforms came from the Irish set piece, which resulted in four scrum penalties in the first 40 minutes of the match with both loosehead prop Andrew Porter and tighthead prop Tom Clarkson drawing the ire of referee Christophe Ridley.
The last of the four penalties was awarded close to the half-time mark with Ireland leading 10-6. At that stage, a puzzled looking Andrew Porter was penalised by Ridley and the ball was kicked by Welsh outhalf Gareth Anscombe into the Irish danger zone for a lineout.
Wales took the lineout and pumped the Irish defensive line by throwing bodies forward across the pitch. From that initial surge Wales earned a penalty and, backing their ball carriers, kicked for a second lineout. The clock was in the red and Garry Ringrose was in the sin bin after his high tackle on Wales centre Ben Thomas earned him a yellow card, which would be upgraded to red. A man to the good, Wales battered the defensive Irish line again and as the bodies swept over towards the Irish posts, one of Wales’ better players, Jac Morgan, found space to punch through. Anscombe converted the score for a 13-10 half-time lead.
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The first scrum of the match resulted in a penalty against Ireland and by 17 minutes Wales had won three scrum penalties with the Irish frontrow looking more perplexed each time Ridley blew his whistle. By the time the match reached the closing stages, the problem had been sorted out and a huge scrum on 73 minutes earned Ireland a penalty and a chance to relieve pressure from a Welsh side that smelled victory. But while it ended well for Ireland, it was the non-performing Irish scrum in the first half of the match that put Easterby’s side under all sorts of unwanted pressure and had them chasing a match they should have been leading in the second half.
