Eighty minutes to immortality

ENOUGH TALKING. Now, at last, the game of truth. It’s been a long time coming this week so, particularly after all the brouhaha, this evening’s little title showdown in Cardiff can’t come quickly enough. This may simply be the biggest game of these Ireland players’ lives, particularly if they win.

The expectations are at fever pitch and everything is set fair. Cardiff is awash in sunshine, with temperatures soaring to un-seasonally high teens. It could almost have been Rome yesterday – well, maybe not – as the advance party of a 15-20,000 Green Army invasion landed.

Opportunity knocks for Ireland to remove that 61-year-old monkey, and given there have been only four opportunities to emulate the heroes of 1948, it’s not stretching things to say that, for Irish rugby, such opportunities only come along once in a lifetime.

At any rate, this is a career-defining game. It’s that big. The case for including Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, et al, atop the pantheon of Irish rugby greats would be conclusive.

Granted, opportunity knocked in 2003 when Ireland met England in a last-day, winner-takes-all. But this is a stronger all-round side than that Ireland team, and mentally this cannot be viewed as nearly as daunting a task as facing the World Cup champions-in-waiting back in ’03. Wales are good, but they’re not that good, not just yet anyway.

Furthermore, Munster have stormed the Millennium Stadium twice to win Heineken Cups and the playing staff and coaching ticket are heavily populated with people who have vast experience of games such as this. All the brickbats from hereabouts might well backfire. They can handle the pressure.

Nonetheless, as in ’03, the toughest part has been kept to last, and the downside of this is that Ireland could win the championship in defeat, were Wales to win by 13 points or less. That would be a huge anti-climax, for although they won’t publicly countenance such an outcome, one imagines in their minds it would serve as a disappointment.

A first championship in 24 years would be duly recognised as a fine achievement, but having given themselves this shot at immortality, it’s almost a win or bust scenario.

One can also readily make a strong case as to why Wales might win. Warren Gatland has stopped the selectorial whims and simply plumped for his best team. His Grand Slam team. All bar one started the win in Croke Park last year. The Gavin Henson-Tom Shanklin midfield partnership, for example, have won all 12 of their Tests together.

The conditions are exactly as they would want them and they clearly intend having an almighty go: quick lineout ball, quick taps, kicking to keep the ball in play, a scorching high tempo using the full width of the pitch and targeting Ronan O’Gara, as Wasps did to Munster in the 2004 Heineken Cup semi-finals and as Wales did last year in Croke Park. One imagines David Wallace will be filling that channel.

The Welsh attack game looks more developed than Ireland’s, which has not repeated the opening feats against France in their last two outings. Shane Williams and Lee Byrne, sure to be hitting the line like no other fullback has done to Ireland thus far, have to be closed down quickly.

Wales’ sharper pace out wide is also manifest in their more ambitious counter-attacking game, and recalling how the kick-and-chase gave Scotland opportunities, the kicking game by O’Gara, Tomás O’Leary and Rob Kearney has to be either very long or, more likely, short enough to chase hard.

First and foremost, perhaps, Ireland have not started any of their last three games well, and were Wales to score a try early on, build up an initial lead, then much of their old swagger will return. It wouldn’t be much fun playing any kind of catch-up against their defence.

If not, though, Wales could become frustrated, for they have gradually lost some of their autumn momentum, especially over the last two matches.

So impressive has Ireland’s conditioning and stamina been that they look the match of Wales physically and, mentally, perhaps look stronger.

In that, Stephen Ferris has been a barometer, yet they are becoming uncannily like a Munster team in their capacity to absorb pressure and then make their turn count.

The collisions will be king. They usually are, but all the more so when Wales play, for like all of the Warren Gatland/Shaun Edwards teams, their game is based on generating go-forward momentum through them. But England, to a large degree, France hugely so, and even the Italians showed how the Welsh can be strangled, and, by taking a decisive hold on the game through strong set-pieces, with O’Connell, Wallace and co patiently working their way through the phases, be it pick and go, one-off runners or launching the freaks in midfield, O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy, Ireland have been the best stranglers in the competition.

Reacting to referee Wayne Barnes, who is more severe on players going off their feet, will be critical.

Ireland may also need more of a mix, and to score a couple of tries, but there has been little evidence recently that their attack can help them over this last hurdle. But they have scored two more than Wales and do have tries in them.

You sense they have what it takes to get there.

Men on a mission.

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Played 113, Wales 62 wins, Ireland 45 wins, 6 draws.

LAST FIVE MEETINGS: 2004 Ireland won 36-15 in Dublin; 2005 Wales won 32-20 in Cardiff; 2006 Ireland won 31-5 in Dublin; 2007 Ireland won 19-9 in Cardiff; 2008 Wales won 16-12 in Dublin.

LEADING TRY SCORERS: Wales: Halfpenny, S Williams, Shanklin 2 each. Ireland: B O'Driscoll 3, Fitzgerald, Heaslip 2 each.

LEADING POINTS SCORERS: Wales: S Jones 29. Ireland: O'Gara 49.

BETTING(Paddy Power): 4/5 Wales, 28/1 Draw, 11/10 Ireland. Handicap (Ireland + 1 pt) 10/11 Wales, 20/1 Draw, 10/11 Ireland.

Forecast: Ireland to win.