Wales were physically immense and surprisingly level-headed and cool

HOWEVER BADLY and deflated I felt on Saturday morning, I can only imagine how this Irish team must have been feeling. Although it very much looks like it, the game was not won by the Welsh openside and outside centre and that is what will sicken Brian O’Driscoll so much.

Last Friday I said Sam Warburton was a class player but highlighted how Samoa nullified his role to an extraordinary degree through an almost violent clearing over the ball carrier. This simply didn’t happen and, to Wales’s incredible credit, couldn’t happen.

It couldn’t happen because Wales imposed themselves ruthlessly on the Irish in swarms and the Irish expected their go-to men to power their way forward. The difference a matter of inches makes to any field sport. Wales left unfettered are unstoppable. Fiji and Namibia understand this. These inches are crucial.

The Irish backrow deserve huge credit for battling to the bitter end but to somewhat understand their role and somewhat lack of effectiveness we must understand the battle of the inches.

I distinctly remember Donncha Ryan running a brilliant line off a go-forward breakdown some weeks back and the Russian defence was all at sea, powerless to the run. That is dream rugby and to mimic that exact run – having to go slightly backwards as was the case for Seán O’Brien and Stephen Ferris to the breakdown – is impossible.

Why pick Ryan? Because he’s the least powerful “backrow” ball carrier but against Russia he was very effective. The backrow were not alone, Paul O’Connell was chopped down well behind the gain-line again by rabid Welsh.

I also said on Friday that muscle has a memory and so too this Irish team. I suggested Warburton’s young captaincy will be tested like never before. Everything went to plan for Wales and the real sickener for Ireland is that they failed to test Warburton’s leadership and this very talented but young Welsh side.

After all, this is cup rugby and there are no better proponents of the art than O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara. Why didn’t we, as Australian legend Tim Horan accused us after the victory over the Wallabies, play cup tactics?

Frontrow forwards get injured all the time and the opening minutes of mayhem was an ideal time to get “injured”.

It appeared the players were so confident in their gameplan it was a matter of implementing it and the tide would turn. Ireland required a time-out to collectively “crank it up”.

That Rhys Priestland stitched the conversion from the touchline was a real psychological blow. The big question after three minutes was could Ireland raise their intensity to the Welsh level while staying cool.

They partly did but the Welsh seemed to sense it and cranked theirs up accordingly. Four breaks from deep by the Welsh off broken field rucks inside 24 minutes. What’s going on? We know they do this, they can’t help themselves. It’s their style as we highlighted on Friday, but the Irish couldn’t get a finger on the Welsh pace, with Shane Williams, Mike Phillips, Leigh Halfpenny all oozing for space.

The score stood 7-0 after 26 minutes and within three minutes Wales turned the psychological screw. They earned their first breakdown-steal penalty which Halfpenny hammered from miles out. In the 29th minute Jamie Heaslip simply couldn’t dominate Warburton, who escorted him into touch from 15 metres.

Three minutes later it happened to him again, and this time it was another backrower, Toby Faletau. Heaslip wasn’t alone in this and the Welsh lapped it up. Ronan O’Gara found himself in traffic far too often and was badly punished. Which brings me back to cup rugby tactics. O’Gara should almost never be in traffic with ball in hand.

When I say traffic I don’t mean him taking the ball on the gain-line, leading his attack before an offload. I mean he should never be forced to put the ball under his arm in some vain attempt to eke out space while the Welsh dogs salivate.

He’s not that type of player and that it happened meant there was a structural problem in Ireland’s tactics which the Welsh were exposing. Cup rugby! Go down injured, Mike Ross, until we figure out the problems.

Then on 33 minutes Ireland got a great lineout steal, game on! But O’Gara carried very meekly into contact and there was a woeful clear-out by the Irish and, you guessed it, along came Warburton to execute Wales’s second breakdown steal. You have to make him at least work for it.

But then Ireland began to come to terms with the pace, slowing Wales down as the clock ticked to half-time. O’Driscoll was extraordinary in the breakdown, stealing and gaining a penalty on 37 minutes. Why Ireland continuously went for the corner off penalties is an insight into the game of psychology that exists at this level of rugby. But Wales won theses battles and grew immensely as a result.

Would the fixture have changed if Ireland landed three points? I think so as the time-out associated with a penalty kick is an opportunity to circle the wagons and listen to real-time communication filtering from the stands. Ireland chose to lay the gauntlet and Wales lapped it up.

Then a light was switched as a superb Irish lineout through O’Connell off the top led to O’Driscoll grubbering down the tram tracks. With Halfpenny gathering O’Driscoll was the lone contester on the deck (extraordinary work-rate) but the big boys arrived and Keith Earls did brilliantly to score. Forty five minutes in and we’re now 10-10.

Now we’d see the Irish cup experience coming to the fore. Surely they’d protect the ball at all costs and play the corners. Wales after all were not committing to the breakdown, choosing instead to fan the field, cutting off the Irish midfield from their inside men, forcing O’Gara into traffic. What can be done to counter this tactic? At 10-10 did we need to put pace on the game or did we need to go up the middle? A balance of course but now the psychology was swinging our way.

A minute later O’Brien got a great steal on the deck from a promising Welsh attack and O’Gara cleared down field. The siege was lifted in this incredible cup match. A minute later and Ireland get another breakdown steal and went to touch off the penalty. Brilliant.

There’s never a good time to lose a lineout but the subsequent lineout put Ireland out of the World Cup as the Welsh snatched it and cranked it up with Phillips getting in at the corner. After two great steals it was a terrible blow to Ireland.

Both Phillips’s and Jonathan Davies’s tries were extremely well taken by two big athletic men but neither should have been conceded. It’s easy to look at the missed tackles but the damage was done in the controllables – the lineout and the breakdown. The final margin was a deserved 12 points for Wales but Ireland will cringe at every one of them.

There was no comeback from Ireland but we can’t lose sight of what Wales brought to the party. They were physically immense and surprisingly level-headed and cool. They played very high-skilled patterns and offloads which will make next weekend intriguing. They deserve to be there and sadly Ireland don’t.