Frustrated Welsh take positives to heart

Player Reaction:There was a strange, almost upbeat, vibe coming from the Welsh dressing-room.

In their quest to find a game that will take them beyond the quarter-finals of this year's World Cup, Wales feel that they have travelled a long stretch of the road.

They know they are not at journey's end yet but, having seriously troubled Ireland, a team they greatly respect, they are confident the team is moving in the right direction.

Wales were the vanquished team all right but in no way was hope extinguished. Nobody was off-message in the camp. This is part of a long road leading to France 2007.

"We are by no means demoralised," said the Welsh tighthead prop, Chris Horsman. "Sure we lost but it doesn't feel like we were beaten. We were happy but massively disappointed with the tries that we - let's be honest about this - gifted them, particularly the first one.

"In any international, to give away a try in the first three minutes, it's hard to come back. But I think we did show some good composure in that first half.

"Ultimately it's the Six Nations Championship but we all know what year it is and what everyone is building for.

"We're not happy about losing anything but as regards to the way we performed in the autumn and the way we performed today, we know we stepped it up."

The Welsh views did not all find echoes in the Irish camp.

Simon Easterby, who was brought into the back row ahead of Ulster's Neil Best and perhaps yesterday proved coach Eddie O'Sullivan was correct in his selection, pointed to the way Ireland kept their heads and ground out the game the way it had to be done.

"By the end we were 10 points ahead," said Easterby. "We could have easily let them in for a try and we didn't do that, so that was a pleasing aspect to our game.

"We put a lot of pressure on them for 20 minutes in the second half but we couldn't really turn that into points and then Rog (Ronan O'Gara) went over near the end and that sort of settled us.

"But it was hard work out there and we made hard work of it ourselves at times."

The Welsh captain, outhalf Stephen Jones, was more downbeat than Horsman.

The old head on the Welsh captain's shoulders probably recognised just how close Wales had come to causing the upset of the competition, and the charge-down of an attempted clearance from their young centre James Hook, late in the match, he believed was crucial.

"We are quite frustrated but we respect the referee and touch judge decisions," said Jones, somewhat diplomatically.

Wales maintained, not without some justification, that Hook had not taken a tap penalty and therefore the charge-down, by O'Gara, was illegal.

"The referee said that he (Hook) tapped the ball but as far as we are concerned he hadn't touched the ball. Sure we're are frustrated at having lost the match and we are disappointed not to have scored a try," added the outhalf.

The Irish team, although they didn't say it, realise that yesterday they may have played their "get out of jail" card. But as the momentum gathers, the team leave Wales with no regrets and, as the evident physical tiredness of the players made clear, everything left on the pitch.

"It was important to get off to a good start and we've done that," said Easterby. "Maybe now we can kick on and look forward to France and, after looking at the other game yesterday, England looked very strong.

"There are plenty of people that can win this tournament and we are not going to get ahead of ourselves.

"There was a lot of pressure on us going into the game from the press," added the Llanelli captain. "We put pressure on ourselves to perform and maybe our performance wasn't quite where it needs to be. But we won the match and that's the most important thing.

"We put pressure on ourselves every time we turn out to play and that comes from within.

"I don't know what the statistics were for possession," he added when it was suggested Wales were frustrated because they felt they had the lion's share of the ball. "But we felt we had a fair bit of possession ourselves and we managed to keep them out and we managed to score three tries as well."

And that, after all, is what they needed to do.