Following Ireland’s 27-18 victory over Wales at the Principality Stadium, here’s our five takeaways from the 2025 Six Nations clash.
The top line
Wales-Ireland in the Six Nations has been a bleak one-sided fixture in recent years with the Irish dominating, winning seven of their last eight meetings, including the last three in a row – with those three victories all coming by more than 20 points.
But today was different. A Welsh outfit fired up and hellbent on ending a 14-match losing streak following the mid-Championship exit of Warren Gatland, arrived at their iconic stadium looking to make a statement against the top-ranked team in the competition and boy did they.
The three-peat-chasing Irish landed the first blow as Jack Conan brilliantly finished off his try, one-handed, in the seventh minute with Sam Prendergast adding the extras and penalty to open up a 10-0 point lead.
It was looking as if it would be more of the same from Wales over the past 14 months but no, they fought back relentlessly with a penalty from Gareth Anscombe, either side of Garry Ringrose’s red card for a dangerous tackle, picking away at the lead before captain fantastic Jac Morgan scored a late first-half try to see the Welsh lead 13-10 at the break.
Tom Rogers’ early second-half try gave the Welsh Rugby public something that has been sorely absent, hope in this team.
However, the old cliche is that it’s the hope that kills you and despite Wales being sharper, smarter, braver and unrecognisable from the team that has been Tier One rugby’s whipping boys, the men in red fell to a 15th straight defeat.
Their demise started with a Prendergast penalty before Jamie Osborne, in his Six Nations debut, scored a crucial try with his fly-half keeping the scoreboard ticking with three more penalties.
The result means that Ireland keep their Grand Slam and Six Nations three-peat hopes well and truly alive after completing the Triple Crown, while Wales looks bound to pick up the Wooden Spoon but a revival of sorts looks is on the cards.
Matt Sherratt’s immediate impact
Praise must be lathered on the Wales effort despite yet another defeat and the nine-point margin as in just a handful of training sessions, Matt Sherratt has turned the woeful Welsh into a competitive team.
Sure Ireland’s teamsheet showed several changes but this 23 was still one that could be fielded against any other Tier One nation and the men from the Emerald Island would be expected to win.
Recently, Wales’ attack has lacked any direction, purpose or cutting edge highlighted by the nilling in round one and 15 points against Italy but today it was a complete contrast as they troubled one of the best defences in international rugby regularly.
Sam Larner dived into why Wales’ attack was so shockingly bad after the defeat to France and Sherratt quickly went about changing the tide as he took over from Warren Gatland with small but very effective tweaks.
There were far more options for the carriers with the ball in hand with forwards tipping on passes regularly throughout the 23, while Anscombe and Tomos Williams showed astute game management in their decision-making for when to attack and when to put boot to ball. It was nothing revolutionary from the caretaker boss, it was simply an attacking gameplan fit for purpose and the demands of where international rugby is right now.
Under Gatland and Rob Howley, the Welsh attack looked massively outdated and the team were simply playing in the wrong areas of the pitch and at the wrong time.
Sherratt’s selections calls were also spot on – more on that later – while the pack really rose to the challenge with the scrum putting Ireland under immense pressure particularly in the first half when Andrew Porter and Thomas Clarkson leaked penalties with just about every set-piece.
Adam Jones deserves huge props for the work he has done in such a short time with the Welsh pack since signing on as today, it gave them a route into the game and an area to put the Irish under pressure.
Wales player ratings v Ireland: Taulupe Faletau ‘rolls back the years’ in ‘brave’ defeat in Cardiff
Warren Gatland proven wrong
One of Sherratt’s first moves when taking over from Gatland was to call upon three players that the ex-head coach had overlooked namely Anscombe, Max Llewellyn and Jarrod Evans. The interim boss took it a step further by naming all three in the matchday 23 with the former pair starting and the latter on the bench.
Fans and pundits have been screaming for those call-ups and they were proven right and Gatland wrong as the trio all had fine outings. As mentioned above Anscombe ran the attack well along with his clubmate Williams while Sherratt explained that cohesion was key in the selection of Llewellyn at centre and he thrived in the midfield with his Cherry and White teammates on his inside.
Gatland has repeatedly pointed to Llewellyn’s lack of touches in the Test against the Springboks in November and his desire to get more involved but today he rubbished those comments. He made nine carries and eight passes with his tally of 17 touches bettering that of Ireland inside centre Robbie Henshaw (16) and the joint tally of Bundee Aki and Ringrose (6).
Sometimes when you are in a rut, you can back your gut too much and that seemed to be the case for Gatland as these straightforward selection calls did not sit well with him but did for Sherratt and the latter was rewarded for it.
Ireland player ratings: Jamison Gibson-Park gets his side ‘out of trouble’ as Andrew Porter exposed
Ringrose red
Strangely, there is a pocket of fans and pundits that feel that Ringrose’s red card was ‘harsh’. Perhaps one could pin it down to shamrock-tinted glasses but even still, the centre had a clear line of sight before shooting up to make the tackle attempt and got it all wrong as he led with the wrong shoulder and made head-on-head contact.
The 20-minute red card trail came into effect for the 2025 Six Nations with the caveat that referees would be allowed to still issue a ‘full red card’ meaning that a team could be down a man for the remainder of the match if the referee deemed the action to warrant such a sanction.
However such incidents would need to be deemed deliberate and dangerous acts of foul play. Ringrose should be pleased that ‘reckless’ is not included in that because he is actions were just that.
Still, the officials got the decision spot on and it’s likely to end Ringrose’s Six Nations campaign and surely hurt his British and Irish Lions ambitions, although one can still expect him to be called up by Andy Farrell.
Ringrose will almost certainly get a three-game ban, cut by one week upon completion of ‘tackle school’ which would see him miss the final two games.
Garry Ringrose’s red card splits opinion as great calls for a ‘big ban’
Different shirt, same Ireland
Having paid Wales their dues for a courageous performance in defeat it would be remiss not address just how good Ireland were in their victory.
Donning their white jersey that looks to have split opinion, there was no doubt that this was still a performance worthy of a back-to-back winning Six Nations Championship team.
The mark of a good team is the ability to adjust and find away to win against adversity and despite Irish media claims that Simon Easterby’s men would hammer the lowly Welsh with 12 men on the park or even their U20s, that was not the case on the pitch as they trailed at half-time.
After deploying a kick-heavy tactic that turned the Welsh backfield in the first half which admittedly resulted in tries, Ireland changed tack and took every opportunity to punish their opponents.
Prendergast was central to that as he produced another convincing performance while Jamison Gibson-Park was sublime once again.
Osborne also took his opportunity of a rare start with both hands and some while the pack rolled up their sleeves and put the scrummaging woes at the back of their minds. Peter O’Mahony showed that he still has what it takes to perform at the highest level with a mighty 19 tackle count – the highest in the match- while Josh van der Flier was excellent once again.
It wasn’t the most compelling victory from Ireland as they resorted to kicking penalties in the second half instead of going for the jugular and backing their attack to rip open the Welsh defence but that is what the best teams do, they adapt to what is in front of them and do what is necessary to get the win.
The Irish grafted harder for this win than many predicted that they would need with even the official Six Nations predictor giving the Welsh less than 10% chance of winning but Championship teams win the games they are expected to and Ireland did just that.
With only France and Italy standing in their way of a Grand Slam and an unprecedented three-peat, they will fancy their chances and rightly so.
READ MORE: Wales v Ireland, AS IT HAPPENED: Matt Sherratt’s men push Grand Slam-chasing Irish all the way
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/wales-v-ireland-five-takeaways-as-warren-gatland-proven-wrong-as-irish-clinch-triple-crown
