If the home defeat to Scotland was a shock to the system, the loss to reigning champions England at Ashton Gate was at least encouraging. To stand any chance of repeating the heroics of last year, that saw Wales finish third, a victory in Ireland is a must.
“We’ve got a good strong pack, and we are really confident in our power game so we believe we can take those strides forward to win,” said Wales lock Abbie Fleming.
“We’re starting to develop real strength in depth, and we’ve seen real impact coming off the bench at key moments during games so far. As a squad we’re very disappointed with the performance against Scotland but there were lots of positives against England.
“That fills us with confidence ahead of Ireland and we’re excited to show what we’ve been working on over the last two weeks.”
The Irish have developed their 15-a-side game dramatically over the last few years, following the Welsh example by offering fully professional contracts and building teams to playing in the Celtic Challenge.
Ireland, who won the WXV 3 title, were able to take plenty of positives to take away from their 38-17 round one loss in France. They then lost 27-21 in front of a healthy crowd of 6,505 at the RDS Arena in Dublin last time out.
Sam Monahan’s side were 15 points down heading into the final quarter yet hit back to pick up a bonus point by only losing by six. They will be dangerous if they carry their late momentum in their game with Wales.
They played a lot of rugby against Italy, making a total of 254 passes – more than any other team in a Championship match this season. When they have kicked in the opening two matches, they have kicked long, making an average of 30.2 metres of territory gain per kick to get themselves out of trouble.
Working tirelessly for results – Ireland have now lost seven Championship matches on the bounce – if they focus on playing in the right areas consistently, they will find their efforts in attack more appropriately rewarded.
This will be particularly crucial against Wales, whose discipline has afforded them huge territorial advantages in the opening two rounds. On average, Wales have conceded the least territory from penalty kicks per match (59 metres) and gained the most (135 metres).
Wales have made fewer passing metres than any other team in the opening two rounds, an average of 659 per match. This is largely due to their strategy of using short passes to bring their powerful forwards into the game: their average pass distance is the shortest in the Championship (five metres).
“Ireland are physical and have really developed but we’ve been looking at specific plays using our power game and how we can get some front-foot ball, but also how we can get the ball wide and attack different areas,” added Fleming.
