“I enjoyed the week and everything about the day – the journey into the ground was unbelievable. It was a brilliant atmosphere,” he said.
“The bus journey in was quite emotional and I’m probably lucky I didn’t see any of my family or I’d have embarrassed myself on the bus and cried in front of the boys. It was just a great occasion and I really enjoyed it.
“Going back to what I said on Monday, it’s important we take a breath and enjoy game days. It’s easy to get bogged down with the outside noise, but it’s really important that game days are enjoyable to all the staff.
“I think we got a bit more of the training week out onto the field than I imagined. Credit to the players because we only really had three days of training.
“To replicate what we did on Tuesday and Thursday as many times as we did, I was pretty pleased with that. It shows they are a good group and they were very engaged all week.
“We asked for two things – to show the crowd some emotion and to show ambition within our structure.”
Despite falling 10 points behind in the first quarter, Wales recovered to score a try at the end of the first half to lead 13-10. Better still, when Tom Rogers scored three minutes into the second half with a spectacular diving try the scoreline went to 18-10 in favour of Wales against the reigning champions.
“Listen, leading 18-10 against Ireland with 25 minutes left on the clock means there is still a long time to go. The Ellis Mee moment at the end was another big moment – that was a very tough call,” added Sherratt.
“You could tell that by the length of time it took to rule out the try. You never kow what might have happened if that had been awarded, but Ireland are a good team and they have a habit of finishing strongly.
“My mindset for these three games is not to get bogged down by what’s happened in the past. I’ve just got to be authentic and coach how I believe the game should be played and make sure I instil some belief in the players.
“Hopefully, the effect of that is a positive one on Welsh rugby. I’ve got to say I thought the U20s win was brilliant and a great sign after picking up two wins on the bounce.
“I thought if there were 50/50s, on the whole, they went for it. There were a couple of times in the first-half, when we were exiting, that if we had called for the ball, there was space.
“But if there was an offload to be thrown, it was thrown. We tried to attack space as much as we could and I was really pleased with the forwards in terms of their ball movement.
“There were lots of late passes at the line. We’ve obviously got a shape in the middle of the field which is pretty difficult to run, so the fact they’ve picked that up in two days and run it pretty well was pleasing.
“It looked like we stood for being brave, which is what we talked about. It has whet people’s appetites in terms of can we build on this.
“I’ve been coaching long enough to know there is always going to be a bounce with a fresh voice and a different attack. The challenge is building on that bounce over the next couple of games.”
