Ireland draw with Wales in Six Nations opener

Wales drew 16-16 with defending champions Ireland in an absorbing Six Nations opener, clawing back a 13-point first half deficit to take the lead before Johnny Sexton levelled with a late penalty.

Wales’ Jonathan Davies, right, hands-off Ireland’s CJ Stander in action during their 2016 Six Nations rugby match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, Sunday Feb. 7, 2016. It was the scrum half’s second try in his last three Tests. However, the most crucial moment was Jonathan Sexton’s long-range penalty in the 74th minute to secure a valuable draw for Ireland.

Wales looked a different outfit in the 10 minutes before half-time.

Three of Wales’ remaining four Six Nations games this season are at home, and skipper Sam Warburton accepts that victories in Cardiff against Scotland, France and Italy are essential, while they also face a Twickenham appointment with England next month.

The wind and rain became more of an issue in the final quarter and in such a war of attrition, with no quarter given or asked, both benches were in regular use.

Ireland, though, made a bright start that Sexton converted into points with a fifth-minute penalty, before Wales stirred through some sustained attacking play that had centre Jamie Roberts at its forefront.

Priestland would hand his side the lead of the game with just eight minutes left of the contest, as Wales positioned themselves ahead in the match for the first time all afternoon following a successful penalty.

But as with the pattern of the game, Ireland hit straight back as Sexton kicked another of his own.

“The lungs were certainly burning at the end and that is a credit to both sides”, he said.

Priestland tried to nick it at the death but his drop-goal was skewed wide of the posts.

Rhys Ruddock, Ireland’s replacement flanker and son of Welsh Grand Slam-winning coach Mike, admitted that the result was likely to keep both sides of his family happy.

“It’s a better result than a draw normally would be”, said the Ireland coach, Joe Schmidt. We had Dev (Toner) and Rory back and apart from that it was a very new group. But Earls’ tackle was ruled illegal because he lifted Williams off the ground and, though he let go, Williams tumbled headfirst to the ground.

“It’s a lot better than a loss”.

“I thought we did well to come back”.

A terrific opening period turned into an absorbing battle of wills in the second-half, with neither side daring to flinch first.

“But we have got three home games now so that’s the positive”.

5 – The number of line breaks made by Ireland, compared to none by Wales. They were desperately unlucky in the World Cup, and I was rooting for them against Australia.

“So for us, we’ll train Tuesday without contact and then on Thursday we’ll train and probably do a little bit of light contact and then we fly out that afternoon to Paris”. Keith Earls may have suffered a concussion, we just need to follow that up.