The Albany Gazette - Farrell welcomes bonus-point win over 'tough' Welsh

The Irish won 27-17 but the outcome of Friday's match was in the balance throughout a riveting, if error-strewn, contest.

Victory guaranteed the Irish will round off their campaign in a Triple Crown decider at home to Scotland next weekend.

The chance to reclaim the title they won in 2024 may have gone by then should reigning champions France secure a bonus-point win over the Scots in Edinburgh later on Saturday.

Farrell, who made five changes to the starting XV that hammered England 42-21 a fortnight ago, preferred to look at the match as one in which the Welsh produced one of their best performances for a long time.

Coming off the back of going close to beating Scotland last time, Wales have a chance to end their 15-match Six Nations losing run against Italy in Rome next Saturday.

"I actually thought Wales did fantastically well to stay in the game," said Farrell.

"They played tough, they hung on in there and kept it close on the scoreboard. I thought they were tremendous.

"It was a proper Test match and for us to come away with a bonus-point win, we'd certainly take that with how the game unfolded because it was a different game to the game we played last time around."

Farrell said Ireland had been unable to seize the initiative as they had done against England.

"We weren't playing rugby on the front foot because of how well they defended," he said.

"I thought we came up against a rock-solid defence who kept knocking us back and we should have been just a little bit more patient at times," added the 50-year-old Englishman.

- 'Enough noise' -

An area of concern for Farrell and the coaching staff was the amount of times the Irish were penalised for offside when the Welsh put them under pressure in their own 22.

"The offside is the hotbed, isn't it, for referees at this moment in time," said Farrell.

"To keep giving them another opportunity and then another opportunity, it gives them the territory and the feel-good factor that they're after, there's no doubt."

Jamison Gibson-Park, Ireland's man of the match against England, felt he and his teammates had perhaps tried to play too much on the front foot.

The 34-year-old New Zealand-born scrum-half, who was winning his 50th cap, said Ireland's natural inclination to attack had at times rebounded on them.

"We're an attacking team and if teams give us space, we want to be able to attack it," he said.

"I think... we certainly, I probably overdid it.

"As game drivers we probably played a little bit more than we needed to, certainly in our own area and through the middle half of the pitch."

Gibson-Park, who became Ireland's undisputed first choice scrum-half in 2024, admitted hard work lay ahead in the coming week.

"There's plenty to look at," he said.

"There's areas we can improve on for sure."

As much as Gibson-Park stands out on the pitch, both for Leinster and Ireland, he remains humble about it.

To the extent that he declined captain Caelan Doris's invitation to lead the team out against the Welsh.

"I think there'd been enough noise already, so I was happy to take my normal role," he said.

However, he admitted a video broadcast on Irish Rugby's website earlier in the week of his family celebrating his landmark Test had an impact on him.

"I was certainly caught on the hop, I didn't know it was coming and for sure, it was pretty emotional seeing it," he said.

(Y.Harris--TAG)