Ireland 12 Wales 16:  Ireland failed to prevent Wales from securing a Triple Crown at Croke Park with a toothless display that appeared miles away from the performance that saw them comfortably beat Scotland two weeks ago.

Wales weathered early possession play from their hosts, emerged stronger for it, and could well have scored more than the one try from Shane Williams, who gleefully equalled Gareth Thomas's record of 40 international scores in the 57th minute.

Outhalf Ronan O'Gara brought Ireland back to within one point of the Welsh with his fourth penalty soon afterwards but all hope was lost when a reckless and pointless hit from Bernard Jackman on Ryan Jones afforded replacement outhalf James Hook a penalty in front of the posts that allowed him inflict the four-point winning margin.

Llanelli outhalf Stephen Jones had already contributed two penalties and a conversion.

Former Ireland coach Warren Gatland had identified O'Gara as the danger to his Welsh side and the Munster man was influential early on with well placed kicks to touch and clever up and unders that forced Wales to backtrack but never really yielded much.

As good as his kicking was, however, the outhalf rarely let the ball go outside him and centres Andrew Trimble and Brian O'Driscoll were starved off possession on the front foot. The captain was later taken off with five minutes remaining after suffering a hamstring strain that will prevent him from facing England in Twickenham next week.

The Welsh line was seriously threatened only once when Shane Horgan was adjudged to have fallen just short of the line after breaking through the tackle of Williams before being held up by scrumhalf Mike Phillips.

The result may well have hinged on that decision and the concession of a penalty in front of the posts at the other end minutes later, when Jones found his mark to complete a potentially crucial 10-point swing for Ireland.

"That would have been a huge score," said Eddie O'Sullivan after the game. "That would have killed it, probably. 13 nil up at that stage and instead they came back and .... it was 6-3 before we knew it."

Wales were in the ascendancy and the balance of power continued to shift as superb handling and offloads from Wales — with Tom Shanklin prominent — began to force some openings.

Fullback Lee Byrne was shoved into touch five metres short of the line and Wales then created their third of fourth large overlap but Kearney scrambled to avert the danger.

Ireland repelled waves of attacks but remained steadfast until the break when they held a three point advantage.

Wales played a quarter of the match with 14 men following the sin-binning of Phillips and Martyn Williams but Ireland could still not break through. In fact, when Phillips was off the pitch, after a cheap shot on Marcus Horan, Wales levelled at six points apiece with another Jones penalty early in the second half.

Finally Ireland gave way, Williams taking Jones' pass and slipping out of the clutches of Andrew Trimble and beating a despairing lunge from Kearney for a thoroughly deserved try.

Williams was dismissed for a trip on Eoin Reddan minutes later and O'Gara slotted the penalty to slash the deficit to 13-9.  His fourth closed the gap to one point before the intervention of Jackman saw the chance slip away.

"We just lost a very tight Six Nations match based on the fact that they scored a try and we didn't.  It's as simple as that," the coach told RTE afterwards. "The next challenge (England) is a different challenge and we'll just move on to the next game."

On O'Driscoll's injury, O'Sullivan said: "Brian has a hamstring tear that he picked up in a ruck. It's happened to him before.

"He was in the approach position, his foot slipped and he was hit from behind. It will certainly take him out of the England game.

"We don't have a clue how long he'll be out for. He'll have a scan tomorrow."