Wales 22 Ireland 10:IN THE heel of the hunt, Wales were obliged to make significantly more tackles (141 to 93) and whereas Ireland had 15 minutes in the Welsh 22, the Red Dragonhood only had six minutes in the Irish 22.

That tells you Ireland did plenty of things well, it’s just that Wales did them better.

This rejuvenated, young Welsh side are moulded in classic Gatland/Edwards style. If England remain like Leicester in disguise – and a fairly ineffective and boring one at that – Wales are an evolution of the Wasps philosophy.

Super fit, they place a huge emphasis on the collisions with their litany of big-hitters and hard, straight runners, like the revitalised Jamie Roberts and the remarkable George North, to add to the footwork of Shane Williams.

They won the collisions, by and large, and the breakdown, and whoever does that generally wins over 80 minutes too. In all of this, tackling, carrying and breakdown work, Sam Warburton was immense.

As was the case when Wales beat Ireland in the countries’ inaugural World Cup match in Wellington in 1987, Wales won the toss and elected to play into the wind in the first half.

For much of the first-half especially Ireland had the territory (60 per cent) and the possession (57 per cent), with Wales making 85 tackles to 46 and conceding six penalties to two.

Wales certainly flirted with a yellow card at the breakdown, and also with the offside line where, remarkably, they weren’t pinged once.

Ireland twice in succession from wide on the right, and with a more favourable angle on the left, eschewed shots at goal despite Ronan O’Gara’s supreme form with the boot.

They still created chances, once blowing a significant overlap and both Rob Kearney and Seán O’Brien were over the line but were prevented from grounding the ball, the latter brilliantly so by Shane Williams.

For much of the night too, Wales had a better shape and depth to their attacking, rarely getting isolated or looking as if they weren’t running through a pattern they’d done on the training ground.

Not so Ireland, who became a little too lateral and lost their shape through the phases, with the net result they weren’t competing enough at the breakdown and their ruck ball was slower.

Wales’ defensive display will rightly be heralded as outstanding, which again tells you Ireland must have done something right.

The spirit was willing throughout the Irish team. The pack were largely excellent on their own scrums and lineout, with Rory Best and Paul O’Connell leading the way.

Donncha O’Callaghan was good too, but hard though O’Brien and Stephen Ferris tried, they couldn’t make inroads.

Aside from attacking his channel, Wales had particular joy in pushing up hard on the outside of Ronan O’Gara and showing him the inside, which he took four times (twice of his own volition).

It’s not the first time a Gatland coached side has blatantly targeted O’Gara, so that shouldn’t have been a surprise to the Irish think tank.

After all it didn’t stop O’Gara making an indelible imprint on the Grand Slam clincher in Cardiff two years ago, when not alone was he outstanding and delivering the most priceless drop goal in Irish rugby history in the endgame, but he’d also applied perhaps the game’s other key moment with his perfectly weighted cross kick for Tommy Bowe’s try.

Thus, it was a surprise the Irish outhalf wasn’t helped by having so few options in terms of inside runners, and that Ireland didn’t adopt more direct pick-and-go or close-in target runners.

Ultimately, despite scarcely using their bench, Wales looked younger, fitter and stronger, and capable of sustaining the game’s high tempo, which they set from the off with the multi-phase move which led to Shane Williams’ third minute try.

Admittedly, Ireland had more of the ball, but Wales’ skills set survived impressively, with the official match stats only crediting them with four handling errors compared to Ireland’s 11, along with a couple of missed touch-kicks by O’Gara which went dead.

Indeed, Wales’ kicking game and their kick-chase game was also significantly superior as they used the wind intelligently in the second half.

You only have to reflect on the kind of pressure Rob Kearney and the Irish wingers were under (which Kearney coped with very well) compared to the virtually non-existent pressure applied to Leigh Halfpenny and his wingers, with the young Welsh fullback augmenting the similarly impressive punting of Rhys Priestland.

Well though Conor Murray played, Wales’ halfbacks were supreme, with Mike Phillips also coming up with the game’s biggest play when spotting an unguarded blindside in the 51st minute to leave Gordon D’Arcy slapping the ground in frustration and, as at Cardiff for Phillips’s controversial try off an illegal lineout, his ex-Ospreys team-mate Bowe flailing again.

Coming within six minutes of Keith Earls’s typically well-taken sliding finish – his fifth of the tournament – it meant Ireland were behind for all but eight minutes of the match.

The lineouts had been excellent, but that followed a slightly mistimed short lineout on halfway – it seemed more a lifting mishap than a throwing issue.

Alas too, as with the Williams try, Jonathan Davies’s clinching try emanated from Earls losing the ball in contact, when counter-attacking, with the Irish defence slow to react as Priestland and Davies switched to the open side, the centre beating Cian Healy on the outside and fending off Eoin Reddan’s covering tackle.

For a team that came into the game with the best tackling statistics in the competition – one missed tackle for every 15 made – they were relatively soft tries.

Even then, O’Brien was nearly in again after a wonderful snipe and offload by Reddan, only for Halfpenny to follow the Edwards’s template and tackle him low.

SCORING SEQUENCE:3 mins: Williams try, Priestland con 7-0; 24 mins: O'Gara pen 7-3; 28 mins: Halfpenny pen 10-3; (half-time 10-3); 45 mins: Earls try, O'Gara con 10-10; 51 mins: Phillips try 15-10; 64 mins: J Davies try, Priestland con 22-10.

WALES: Leigh Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues); George North (Scarlets), Jonathan Davies (Scarlets), Jamie Roberts (Cardiff Blues), Shane Williams (Ospreys); Rhys Priestland (Scarlets), Mike Phillips (Bayonne); Gethin Jenkins (Cardiff Blues), Huw Bennett (Ospreys), Adam Jones (Ospreys), Luke Charteris (Newport Gwent Dragons), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys), Dan Lydiate (Newport Gwent Dragons), Sam Warburton (Cardiff Blues) (capt), Toby Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons).

Replacements:Bradley Davies (Cardiff Blues) for Charteris (half-time), James Hook (Perpignan) for Priestland (76 mins). Not used: Lloyd Burns (Newport Gwent Dragons), Paul James (Ospreys), Ryan Jones (Ospreys), Lloyd Williams (Cardiff Blues), James Hook (Perpignan), Scott Williams (Scarlets).

IRELAND: Rob Kearney (Leinster); Tommy Bowe (Ospreys), Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster) (capt), Gordon D'Arcy (Leinster), Keith Earls (Munster); Ronan O'Gara (Munster), Conor Murray (Munster); Cian Healy (Leinster), Rory Best (Ulster), Mike Ross (Leinster), Donncha O'Callaghan (Munster), Paul O'Connell (Munster), Stephen Ferris (Ulster), Seán O'Brien (Leinster), Jamie Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: Eoin Reddan (Leinster) for Murray, Jonathan Sexton (Leinster) for O'Gara (both 56 mins), Andrew Trimble (Ulster) for Earls (72 mins), Donnacha Ryan (Munster) for Ferris, Denis Leamy (Munster) for Heaslip (both 75 mins). Not used: Seán Cronin (Leinster), Tom Court (Ulster).

Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)