Stuttering Irish secure the points

Wales 9 Ireland 19:  Title favourites Ireland survived a scare at the Millennium Stadium before launching their Six Nations Championship campaign with full points.

First-half tries from hooker Rory Best - he touched down after just 47 seconds - and captain Brian O'Driscoll gave Ireland a winning platform.

But they were pushed to the limit by a resilient Wales side who stayed in contention through three Stephen Jones penalties.

The game though, produced a low skill factor and high error count as it failed to match expectations following resounding victories recorded by Six Nations pacesetters England and France on Saturday.

Centre Gordon D'Arcy and number eight Denis Leamy can, however, take tremendous credit for their efforts, both players spurring on the visiting side when things were not quite going their way.

A scoreless third quarter emphasised a distinctly average contest, and although Wales occasionally flickered through scrum-half Dwayne Peel and full-back Kevin Morgan, the game proved a pale shadow of their 2005 Grand Slam-clinching success against the same opponents.

It took Ireland until the 72nd minute to finally grind Wales down, when outhalf Ronan O'Gara squeezed over in the corner despite a despairing James Hook tackle.

O'Gara slotted his second successful conversion to open up a 10-point gap, yet Ireland will need to show a considerable improvement when they face France at Croke Park in Dublin next Sunday.

Coach Eddie O'Sullivan admitted his side would have to improve.

"I won't say I'm over the moon but I'm happy to get a win.

"If you'd told me we'd win and score three tries I'd have taken it. I wouldn't get carried away though. If we play like we played today against France we'll be in trouble."

But O'Sullivan was still happy with his side for coming through a tough match.

"It was a battle from start to finish but we're very happy to get the win. We're going to be hard on ourselves [because] we created problems by not being accurate.

"When you come to Cardiff you expect that [a challenging atmosphere] and early on we couldn't hear the lineout calls it was so intense.

"We made our mistakes, as you do in a rough and tumble game" he added. "But it's something to build on for next week."

The Ireland coach also revealed that inspirational captain O'Driscoll, who was substituted late on, was nursing a hamstring problem and would be assessed during the week.

Peel admitted the hosts were disappointed by their performance in the second period, after competing well in the opening 40 minutes.

"It's a bitterly disappointed changing room," he said. "We felt that in the first half we dominated and were disappointed to come in [trailing] 12-9.

"In the second half we gave too much ball away and made too many silly errors. We were struggling for territory for large parts of the second half."

Like O'Sullivan, Peel was looking forward to getting back on the field next week, when Wales visit Scotland.

"There's definitely something to work on for next week, but Ireland's kicking game was too much," hesaid.