Shane Williams’ column: That Ireland match is looking massive
If the Irish can beat England in Dublin today then they will come to Cardiff in confident mood. There is no reason why we can’t win that game, but I think it will take a little bit more than we saw in Paris to pick up another victory.
But let’s give credit where it’s due – this was by far the best performance of the campaign to date and, after sorting out a few discipline problems in the first-half, they easily coped with almost everything the French threw at them.
Mathieu Bastareaud’s early introduction off the bench didn’t cause any problems, the monster front-row that came on didn’t make any headway at the scrum and the Welsh lineout functioned at 100 per cent. The set-pieces were fantastic and paved the way for the victory.
Fair play to Warren Gatland and his coaches, the big calls to bring into the starting XV Luke Charteris and Scott Baldwin worked perfectly. It was something like 22 lineouts Wales had lost in their last five games and the two men made a huge difference in changing that statistic.
The scrum, too, with Samson Lee back in harness was rock solid. And against a monster French pack that was no mean achievement. In fact, you could say Wales got the upper hand in that area because they worked a superb penalty for Leigh Halfpenny to kick in the second half to move further ahead.
What a find Lee has been for Wales. In a very short space of time he has almost become as important to the Welsh team as his predecessor, Adam Jones, and his power and quality at the scrum allows confidence to run through the rest of the team.
When the set-piece is strong, Wales are at their most potent and you could see the confidence flowing through the side as they comfortably won their own ball at the scrum and didn’t surrender any ball at the lineout. Confidence is a massive thing in any team and that is what made Wales look so comfortable throughout the game.
Gatland said after the game that Wales get better the longer they spend together and that is certainly true. There was far greater precision in everything they did in Paris compared to the opening two matches against England and Scotland.
Would what we saw at Stade de France have been good enough to have beaten England? Possibly. Will it be enough to beat Ireland in two weeks time? Probably not.
But with two more weeks to build towards the game against the Irish I’m pretty confident this Welsh team will improve even more than it has done in the opening month of the tournament. What a game that now promises to be at the Millennium Stadium.
The half-time stats showed what a good job Wales had done on the French. They had silenced the crowd by forcing the home team to make three times as many tackles as they had put in and Wales had also made twice as many carries.
Wales always play well when Jamie Roberts gets over the gain-line and his early thrusts allowed us to get some good field positions and take the game to the French. Jonathan Davies was equally good alongside him and it was great to see the way Wales used his left boot to gain territory and put the ball behind the French defence.
The half-backs were very good and Dan Biggar once again grew in stature with his performance and try. Nothing seems to faze him and I just hope the injury that forced him off near the end doesn’t cause any problems ahead of the Ireland match.
There were some huge positives to come out of this win in Paris, not least the fact it was the fourth win in a row over the French. But if the forwards can play like that again, and the defence can stay as strong as it was, then there is every reason to believe this side can do what it do two years ago and come from a game down to win the Championship.
A lot will depend on what happens in Dublin today, but if the Irish win and we can beat them in Cardiff then it will all go down to the last weekend – with Wales travelling to Rome to face Italy.
All of a sudden there is everything to play for again!
