LAST UPDATE | 23 Feb
THE WEATHER APP on The 42’s phone states it’s just 1°C but a couple of yards in front of us, Huw Bennett, the former Wales hooker who now works as the WRU’s Head of Physical Performance, is bouncing around in a t-shirt and shorts. “Bit chilly, eh?” he acknowledges before guiding Warren Gatland’s squad – most of whom are wearing base layers and bobble hats – through a series of warm-up drills in UCD this morning.
Wrapped up and watching on from our vantage point on the sideline, the most striking thing about the scene before us is just how young the group look. This is Wales alright, but not as we know them. The starting team named by Warren Gatland for tomorrow’s Six Nations meeting with Ireland [KO 2.15pm] contains a total of 499 caps, with George North responsible for 119 of those. When the same teams met in Cardiff last year, Wales’ total caps came in at 952.
This is a new, younger Wales team and as such, they are being given little chance of causing an upset in Dublin.
How Warren Gatland must love that. Gatland came out blazing over the last few days, describing Welsh rugby as a “sinking ship” in his pre-match press conference before writing in his Telegraph column that he “can’t remember feeling so pumped going into a Test match,” but not once during our 15 minutes access window to this morning’s Captain’s Run did he make his voice heard to the group.
Instead, Gatland pulled his hood up over his head and kept a watchful eye from a distance, cracking the odd joke with his training staff.
The New Zealander has gone all in on a squad refresh for this Six Nations. Tomorrow’s starting fullback, Cameron Winnett (21-years-old) will be winning just his third Test cap. Out-half Sam Costelow (23) is on nine caps, tighthead Keiron Assiratti (26) on four, and flanker Alex Mann (22) on two. Dafydd Jenkins (21), who captains the side, is on 14 caps.
Earlier in the week Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby, who made his Test debut under Gatland, highlighted how he has always been good at getting young players up for big challenges, and tomorrow in Dublin looks as big as it gets for Wales in this championship.
“Yeah, he’s done that in the past,” explains scrum-half Tomos Williams, who stops for a quick chat as training wraps up and the team bus is loaded for departure.
I think the boys are really feeding off his words and speeches, especially the young boys, and they’re looking forward to it.”
Williams doesn’t go into any detail on what makes Ireland so hard to beat, but the stats tell that story for him. Andy Farrell’s side have won 17 in a row at home while Wales have lost nine of their last 10 matches in the Six Nations. You have to go back 12 years for the last time Wales left Dublin with a Six Nations win.
“At the moment they’re probably the best team in the world so they’ve a lot going for them, but we’ve a lot of young boys who maybe haven’t experienced that [losing in Dublin], so that’s a good thing,” Williams says.
“It’s a big challenge but we’re looking forward to it. We know what to expect.”
While there doesn’t seem to be much optimism among the travelling Welsh media pack, the sense is that the players have been left deeply frustrated by their start to this championship.
Having fallen 27-0 down by half-time at home to Scotland on the opening weekend, Wales rallied back to lose 27-26. In round two they led at 14-5 at the break in Twickenham, only to go on and lose 16-14 – that one in particular felt like an opportunity missed.
“We’ve played well in two halves over the two games. We need a bit more consistency, not over the full 80 because it’s very rare you get that, but as close to that as possible.
We’ve had two good halves and if we can play like that more often than not, that excites me. The way we want to play excites me.”
At the far end of the pitch the players run through a short running and handling drill, where Bundee Aki’s name is mentioned by one of the Welsh coaches. It’s no surprise the Welsh see the in-form Connacht man as a threat, but they’ll view Ireland’s more inexperienced players as their primary targets tomorrow.
Fullback Ciarán Frawley will be an obvious one as he makes his first Test start, but the visitors will also try to put pressure on Jack Crowley, who ran Ireland’s attack beautifully against Italy last time out. Interestingly, Gatland also wrote how James Lowe isn’t the strongest under the high ball.
With Ireland heavy favourites to notch up their third bonus-point win of the campaign, Wales just might get to throw the shackles off and cut loose.
“We’ve got to throw some punches, not literally, but we need to impose our style on the game and not be afraid to throw some punches, and we need to chance our arm as well,” Williams adds.
“There’s nothing worse than regretting something after the game. We don’t want to do that.
“As long as you can say we’ve thrown some punches and tried what we wanted and done what we’ve wanted, you can’t ask for much more than that.”
