Ireland v Wales, 29 August

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IRELAND v WALES
29 August 2015
KO: 14:30 local
Aviva Stadium, Dublin

Live on Sky Sports 1/RTÉ Radio 1/IRFU Live Blog/highlights RTÉ Two (8pm

Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Assistant Referees: Wayne Barnes, Luke Pearce (both England)
TMO: Graham Hughes (England)

A. Head to Head

122 Played 122
50 Won 66
6 Drawn 6
66 Lost 50
1,355 Points 1,445

B. Recent Form

8 August 2015
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
21 – 35 to Ireland

14 March 2015
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
23 – 16 to Wales

8 February 2014
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
26 – 3 to Ireland

2 February 2013
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
22 – 30 to Ireland

5 February 2012
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
21 – 23 to Wales

8 October 2011
Regional Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand
22 – 10 to Wales

12 March 2011
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
19 – 13 to Wales

C. Teams

IRELAND

Rob Kearney (Leinster), Dave Kearney (Leinster), Luke Fitzgerald (Leinster), Robbie Henshaw (Connacht), Keith Earls (Munster), Johnny Sexton (Leinster), Conor Murray (Munster), Jack McGrath (Leinster), Richardt Strauss (Leinster), Nathan White (Connacht), Iain Henderson (Ulster), Paul O'Connell (Toulon, CAPT), Peter O'Mahony (Munster), Jordi Murphy (Leinster), Jamie Heaslip (Leinster)

Replacements: Sean Cronin (Leinster), Dave Kilcoyne (Munster), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster), Donnacha Ryan (Munster), Sean O'Brien (Leinster), Eoin Reddan (Leinster), Paddy Jackson (Ulster), Felix Jones (Munster)

WALES

Leigh Halfpenny (Toulon), Alex Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues), Scott Williams (Scarlets), Jamie Roberts (Harlequins), George North (Northampton Saints), Dan Biggar (Ospreys), Rhys Webb (Ospreys), Gethin Jenkins (Cardiff Blues), Ken Owens (Scarlets), Tomas Francis (Exeter Chiefs), Bradley Davies (Wasps), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys, CAPT), Dan Lydiate (Ospreys), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), Taulupe Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons)

Replacements: Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Paul James (Ospreys), Aaron Jarvis (Ospreys), Luke Charteris (Racing Metro), James King (Ospreys), Gareth Davies (Scarlets), Rhys Priestland (Scarlets), Hallam Amos (Newport Gwent Dragons).

Going in to this game I would have said that Bradley Davies was fourth choice at lock but he doing very well today.

Welsh win - Tipuric MOTM
Irish win - Henderson MOTM

maestegmafia wrote:Going in to this game I would have said that Bradley Davies was fourth choice at lock but he doing very well today.

In fairness he has played very well in his last few games for Wales, it's just that they were a fair time ago due to injury.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Welsh win - Tipuric MOTM
Irish win - Henderson MOTM

Tough one to call between the two as far as who's been more influential. Clear standouts though.

Surely Gatland is going to have to play Warburton and Tipuric in the same backrow again soon

Neither team getting a chance to score at the moment

It's good to see those kind of clear outs getting stamped down on in general. 'Better safe than sorry' is absolutely right.

To be fair, when I saw it in real time I thought the flag was going to go up.

Lineout has gone to pieces

Notch wrote:It's good to see those kind of clear outs getting stamped down on in general. 'Better safe than sorry' is absolutely right.

Thought the instruction was YC for those.

Nasty head injury for Earls apparently

Sad to see right before the world cup

Keith Earls got his head on the wrong side - he has put in some heroic tackles.

LondonTiger wrote:

Notch wrote:It's good to see those kind of clear outs getting stamped down on in general. 'Better safe than sorry' is absolutely right.

Thought the instruction was YC for those.

Within discretion. That would have been an overreaction.

LondonTiger wrote:

Notch wrote:It's good to see those kind of clear outs getting stamped down on in general. 'Better safe than sorry' is absolutely right.

Thought the instruction was YC for those.

It was borderline, he actually didn't grab his neck but it could have been dangerous.

Davies and Preistland on for Wales, big challenge for them to close out this game.

Not good for Earls. Hope he's fit for the RWC.

Ireland swap Murray and Sexton for Reddan and Jackson.

Sad to see Keith Earls go off...

Let's hope it's just a precautionary measure..

Notch wrote:

Ireland swap Murray and Sexton for Reddan and Jackson.

Ah, that will be why Gatland is willing to risk putting Preistland and Davies on.

Amos is on for Roberts apparently!

I hope that was planned. I guess North is at 13.

We've just had to bring on Donnacha Ryan for Luke Fitzgerald... Henderson to centre? #crashball

Reddan has certainly sped things up, he does make a difference.

AWJ injured. Really bad news, hope it is just a tweak

Thought Wales might start to drop off when the bench came on, but so far they are doing well

This scrum could be interesting, Jarvis on and King in the second row :/

Lineout has been a real problem in the second half

wales606 wrote:Amos is on for Roberts apparently!

I hope that was planned. I guess North is at 13.

It was pre-planned for North to go 13 aye.

Oh dear, Wales will be very annoyed if they fail to close this out now

NOOOO!!!!

God damn

Come on TMO...

Wait, maybe not

Held up.

Great game...!

Well played Ireland, some blwdi boys in that team..

Shame the rain stopped the open game.

Well done Wales, proved again that Ireland seem clueless when behind.

Deserved winners today and one hell of a defensive effort from Wales.

That pool A is going to be a cataclysmic battle. Wales look very strong.

Great work from the Welsh defence there to be fair. Not too unhappy with that as a warm-up, we'll have learned a lot more from that game than the first two. Biggest frustration is the injuries.

Next week is the big one in terms of a first choice team showing they are match ready.

Wales looked a lot fitter and a lot more organised than Ireland. specialy in defence.


A good win for Wales, Ireland looks like it is back to the drawing board for the next game.

Tiperic a well deserved Man Of the Match in my opinon. he was all over the place.

Well done Wales, amazing defensive effort when needed and the more dangerous team with the ball in hand. Ireland always seem to be out of ideas against you lot!! As much as I wanted the try at the end I think it wouldnt have been a fair reflection of the game.

Wow

We actually held out a full strength irish side and managed the win

Its like Christmas morning

And a side containing POC and SEX to boot.

Pretty happy with that.

Notch wrote:Great work from the Welsh defence there to be fair. Not too unhappy with that as a warm-up, we'll have learned a lot more from that game than the first two. Biggest frustration is the injuries.

Next week is the big one in terms of a first choice team showing they are match ready.

Aye there were always going to be injuries. A titanic game like that, someone's going to get hurt, both teams pushing very hard.

Definitely the most intense warm up match so far.

Let's hope all substitutions were just precautions measures due to the imminent tournament.

I think the English may feel the full force of an irish backlash!

I agree that was a good warm-up game for both sides. A loss is probably more beneficial to Ireland than a win, and besides we do have a couple of excuses.

However Ireland could struggle to name a squad against England - the squad is cut to 31 on Monday and a number of players (particularly in backline) will be carrying knocks. That is assuming the injuries today are not enough to put anyone out of the squad - although Earls did not look good and there'll be major concern over Fitz.

Marshes wrote:Well done Wales, amazing defensive effort when needed and the more dangerous team with the ball in hand. Ireland always seem to be out of ideas against you lot!! As much as I wanted the try at the end I think it wouldnt have been a fair reflection of the game.

I wasn't terribly impressed by any of our back line. Sexton and Murray looked rusty, Back three had little space to work in, centres- meh. We were very much disrupted by the injuries to Earls and Fitzgerald though. We had little option but to try and kick for position once those two went off. Ran out of options.

In normal circumstances you'd say that we should have been attacking them much closer to the ruck but really in a game like this there's no point in adapting the game to the opponent. We're trying to develop a game plan to beat France and Italy after all.

Priestland doing his bit in almost turning victory into a last second defeat. Good game for both teams a hard game to builf up for the rwc. I wish Wales go to touch when the defence is all over the place.

theslosty wrote:I agree that was a good warm-up game for both sides. A loss is probably more beneficial to Ireland than a win, and besides we do have a couple of excuses.

However Ireland could struggle to name a squad against England - the squad is cut to 31 on Monday and a number of players (particularly in backline) will be carrying knocks. That is assuming the injuries today are not enough to put anyone out of the squad - although Earls did not look good and there'll be major concern over Fitz.

Fortunately both Trimble and Bowe made it through the game last night, Trimble did 80 minutes. If those two make the cut for the squad we should be ok with them coming back in, plus Payne and Zebo.

I think the only back line player who really advanced his case was Dave Kearney. Very solid performance from him, consistently made yards and incredibly solid positionally.

Marshes wrote:Well done Wales, amazing defensive effort when needed and the more dangerous team with the ball in hand. Ireland always seem to be out of ideas against you lot!! As much as I wanted the try at the end I think it wouldnt have been a fair reflection of the game.

I think the Irish tactic sexitoes was aiming to employ was to drag the Welsh rush defence up and exploit space behind. It was not a bad measure.

A different bounce and Henshall or Kearney would have had only Halfpenny to beat.


Great positives for both sides.

What a superb player Henderson is. Almost out shone old POC on his big day.

Schmidt says earls is fine... Great news. Had us all very worried here.

maestegmafia wrote:Schmidt says earls is fine... Great news. Had us all very worried here.

Gwlad wrote:I think the English may feel the full force of an irish backlash!

Really hope so!

Just get some doubt creeping into those English minds...

The score from this game is no more relevant than the last Wales V Ireland friendly, but still it's nice to get a win and it still lets the Welsh and Irish thinks we always have a 50/50 game.

I enjoyed the game it's just what both teams need, thankfully Ireland have a much easier game next week, and Wales have another tough one with Italy.

Italy are currently losing 43-7 to Scotland, so I think you MIGHT be able to handle them