Johnny Sexton spoke of the relief his Ireland team felt at claiming maximum points from their first game of the Six Nations. Having lost the first two games of their campaign last year, Ireland opened with a resounding 29-7 win over the champions Wales in Dublin.
“I would have snapped your hand off at the start of the game,” said the Ireland captain. “Big time, against the reigning champions, to come away with five points.
“When I looked out of the window this morning I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Thankfully, the rain stayed away for the most part, but the wind played its part in both halves really.
“We knew if we could get a good foothold in the game in the first half playing into the elements, that second half we’d have the breeze behind us and we could use it to our advantage.” Last season, Ireland opened with defeat in Cardiff, a match that launched Wales’s successful championship. A week later, they lost at home to France, where they travel next.
“I can’t tell you how demoralising the first game was last year,” said Sexton. “The triple crown was gone, the grand slam gone. You’re up against it to win the championship. That’s what we’re pleased about most.
“We feel there’s plenty of stuff to brush up on next week. France away is arguably one of the biggest tests in world rugby. We need to be at our very best and we need to learn some lessons from today, even in victory. We did that over November, and hopefully we can continue in that vein.”
After the low of that second defeat, Ireland ended up third in the table and embarked upon a winning run that now stands at nine and includes the scalps of England and New Zealand.
“There’s always been confidence in the group, even when times were low in the first two games last year,” said Sexton. “We weren’t too far away and thankfully we’ve turned things around results-wise.”
For Wales, there were few positives. Josh Adams was shown yellow a few minutes into the second half, but Wales were 17-0 down at that point – and another try down when he returned. Wayne Pivac was philosophical.
“We made 100-odd tackles in the first half,” he said. “When you are defending for long periods like that, it makes it very difficult when we do get our hands on the ball.
“It is certainly a game we will go away and improve on very quickly.. We always look at performance; you can look at the result. After that many tackles, a bit of fatigue does set in. It happens to any side.
“The boys came back very strongly in that last quarter of the game and kept fighting towards the end, which is what we want.”
Wales were not awarded a penalty until the 54th minute. “There was a lot of assistant referee interjection from one side of the field. He saw it a certain way and we might disagree with some of those calls, in particular the scrum. They see it the way they do and we have to go with those decisions at the time.”
