by Dylan James
TRIES from a winger playing at 13 and a 20 year old with five caps, a red card for Lion Peter O’Mahony, and an injury for controversial call-up Dan Lydiate, Wales v Ireland certainly provided the drama.
Scarlets centre Johnny Williams was forced off the field for Wales through a head injury, with Ireland also losing James Ryan and Johnny Sexton for the same reason.
Ireland kept the pressure on right up until Sexton replacement Billy Burns punted the ball into the dead zone, fumbling Ireland’s chances of creating a last-gasp attempt for victory.
Head coach Pivac explained that he was aware of how well Ireland played, despite going down to 14 men in the opening 40, but went on to describe how the half-time team talk helped Wales to play better.
“They didn’t adjust what they were doing, they did exactly what we thought they would do. We talked about our discipline, and how important it was last time we played them.”
“It was very difficult to get our hands on the ball. We talked about that at half-time and I think in the third 20 minutes we were a lot better, we managed to claw our way back into the game and get two scores ahead.”
Replacement Gareth Davies had the opportunity to kill the game off following a Wales scrum, but opted for a grubber into the hands of the Irish instead, which confused many of the observers to say the least. This caused another four minutes of relentless Irish pressure, which Pivac believes should have been avoided.
“We were just disappointed we put ourselves under so much pressure when we felt that we’d won the game at the scrum put-in. We’d looked at creating one phase, clearing that ruck out and kicking the ball out.”
“We discussed it in the changing room. In a game like that, with the injuries, we didn’t really need that.”
Wales made an astonishing 270 tackles, with Alun Wyn Jones appearing on the leaderboard for those figures, along with Tomas Francis and Justin Tipuric. Jones understood how difficult Ireland made it for his team.
“We probably defended for longer periods than we would have liked!”
“I’m proud of the boys, particularly with their application in defence.”
With so much pressure on Pivac and his team to perform, a lot of critics had this game down as a “must win” for Wales, after a dismal 2020. However, skipper Alun Wyn believes every game is just as crucial.
“When you play for Wales, every game is a must win game. There’s pressure on every game you play, that doesn’t change.”
Wales travel to Murrayfield next week, as they take on a Scottish side who on Saturday made history, beating England away from home for the first time in 38 years.
