Wales trailed 13-0 at the Aviva Stadium as the hosts started in style.
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Wales are also sweating on Dan Biggar, who hobbled off with a high ankle sprain.
“Overall I think we’re pleased that we’ve shown a little bit of what we know we can do, and we’ve proved it a little bit out there today”.
“Tommy O’Donnell went off for a head injury assessment but passed it without any problems but at that stage Rhys Ruddock (his replacement) had sort of grown in to the game”.
Gatland added: “Gareth’s hamstring was tight on Friday, so we pulled him out of training and Liam ran there all day on Friday”. He still felt the tightness and medically we made that decision last night.
A draw was arguably the fairest result, given that both teams did their utmost to batter each other into submission and neither deserved to taste defeat. If we win our next three games, we will be in with a shout.
“The way the Irish newspapers had written it up, Ireland had two chances heading into this game”.
“But I thought we did quite well there, played well, the lads who haven’t been in the team performed well. It’s disappointing we let Wales back into it”, Ireland captain Rory Best said in a pitchside interview. Emotionally Ireland were better than us in the first 20 minutes and we gave away soft penalties. Yet they must overcome Scotland and after seeing Vern Cotter’s team beaten 15-9 by England at Murrayfield, Charteris understands the nature of the task awaiting.
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s your first game or you’ve been there for years, everyone buys into that and that’s what you see no matter who puts on the jersey’. It was their dominance of the scrum that was beginning to really force the cracks.
“With a bit of luck Scotland might agree to have the roof closed and we can go out and both try to play some rugby”.
Roberts ended the game as one of Wales’ top tacklers, along with Taulupe Faletau, making 21 tackles in all, clattering his opposite number with a huge hit in the second half. “We’re happy we didn’t lose the game”, Best told ITV.
The Welsh management spoke about their intent to limit penalties, knowing it would surrender field position and ultimately result in more attacking opportunities for the Irish.
“But you have to credit Ireland”. Wales found itself nearly immediately back into Irish territory as Tipuric kicked the ball deftly into the Irish in-goal area and tackled Andrew Trimble to set up a string of Welsh scrums from the Irish five-meter line.
“We are squeezed for time but no player is going to be ruled out yet”.
“It was a tough, tough Test match”.
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“You can get away with that against Wales but it’s a real risk against the French, the width they played with was pretty impressive at times. That’s going to be something we’re going to have to be very good at defending”.
