Jones will line up alongside Andrew Coombs in Dublin in round two, with Toner tipped to partner Ireland captain Paul O’Connell if the veteran Lions star recovers from a chest infection as expected.
And Toner, who shone in Sunday’s success against Scotland, believes that stopping Jones in his tracks could have a big bearing on who remains unbeaten in the RBS 6 Nations in two days’ time.
“We (Leinster) have played against him a fair bit. He’s quite a menace,” Toner told the Irish Times.
“He’s good in mauls, likes to disrupt them and make a nuisance of himself. Our focus will be to get in early and try to get rid of him, out of ruck and maul.”
The same could be said of Ireland’s approach towards the Welsh pack as a whole: stop momentum at source at you limit the chance for a big backline to do damage in wide open spaces, just as they did in the same fixture two years ago when George North and Jonathan Davies were particularly impressive.
Ireland were outstanding up front in the final 50 minutes or so of their 28-6 win over the Scots and Toner is keen for his side to kick on come Saturday afternoon.
“Plum (forwards coach John Plumtree) has been knocking it home that we want to become not just a good pack but a great pack. We proved at the weekend that we can maul and our scrum was excellent,” added Toner, who isn’t concerned by Ireland’s six-day turnaround between the first two weekends.
“Our focus going into every game as a pack is to get the upper hand. If they get front foot ball off the setpiece it is not ideal given the size of their backs. We are going to do our best to negate it.
“The mood is quite positive. We only looked back to go forward; we didn’t really look at the Scotland game a lot, our main focus was Wales. We had a short little meeting about Scotland but then everyone was focusing on the weekend coming.
“We had a session on Tuesday, where we were a little sore, but once you get out and start running you loosen up. We had a day off yesterday. The strength and conditioning staff and Joe (head coach Joe Schmidt) really look after us. I don’t think it’s an issue.”
