Ireland 27-17 Wales
Wales give Ireland a fright before hosts hang on
Never in the Five and Six Nations history between Ireland and Wales have the scales been so lopsided as they prepared to play in Dublin. When referee Karl Dickson wrapped it up on a beautiful spring night those scales had shifted. Not quite enough to give Wales a win they would have celebrated like a Championship, but enough to leave their hosts as shaken as they were stirred.
You couldn’t claim Ireland didn’t deserve to win given their dominance and efficiency in that last quarter of the field, but it was a battle that will force Andy Farrell to revisit the quality of Ireland’s attack.
Top of the list for Steve Tandy surely was to get through the opening negotiations without conceding key points. That one went south inside six minutes when Jacob Stockdale chose a perfect line to punish Dan Edwards from close in. If Wales were concerned about the absence of Sam Costelow then that didn’t look good; and if some questioned the presence of Stockdale then that too was good for the winger. That it was his 20th try emphasised his pedigree.
