Ireland keep grand slam dream alive by beating Wales

The Irish remain the only side with a flawless record of three wins from three in this season’s competition after winning 37-27 in Dublin, before England were stunned 25-13 by Scotland in Edinburgh. He started the first two games at fly-half but was left out of the match-day 23 for this encounter following the return of Dan Biggar.

But now if Ireland stick four tries past Scotland in Dublin after the fallow week and England fail to in Paris against France, there will be green ribbons not white on the trophy at headquarters on March 17 for the first time since 2015.

Ireland face Scotland in two weeks time and following their Calcutta Cup success on Saturday, Schmidt’s side must not take their Celtic cousins for granted, despite their poor performances, prior to Saturday evening, in this year’s NatWest 6 Nations.

“He’s walking without any problem at all”, Schmidt said.

“When you make a pass, and it is successful, it builds confidence”.

With a fallow week coming up both players will have time to recover after an intense third round.

The amount of work that the forwards get through in the lead up to Bundee Aki’s try was remarkable, and when they have someone like Sexton running the show outside of them, their hard graft is always likely to reap rewards.

Ireland hold an open training session at Lansdowne Road on Tuesday and we could see several big names watching, like the fans, from the sidelines. “So credit to Joe and the team and their attacking staff, and they are definitely going in the right direction”.

Ireland are two from two so far in the Six Nations this year, having squeezed past France in Paris 15-13 thanks to an overtime drop-goal from Johnny Sexton.

“(Lock) James Ryan and (prop) Andrew Porter – what a huge stage to come in to and you have to be hugely impressed”, said Schmidt. “It’s a credit to this team, that’s two dramatic finishes”, Ireland centre Chris Farrell, man of the match in his Six Nations debut, said in a pitchside interview.

Ireland’s try haul continued in the second half with Dan Leavy, Cian Healy and Jacob Stockdale (again) all contributing crucial scores.

‘I need to get this, ‘ Stockdale thought.

He knows that if Ireland had let this game slip he’d have been pilloried for his inaccuracy with the boot and that decision to tap and go with a 68th-minute penalty when a kick would have nudged Ireland 10 points in front and taken the sting out of the game.

We want to keep growing the group, and it was good for Joey.

“George was good, I really thought he looked unsafe so it is nice to start developing a bit of depth in those back-three positions”, said Gatland.

“Italy have definitely improved from a conditioning point of view and they stayed in the game against France for a while so we mustn’t get too impatient”.