Simon Easterby hails Ireland’s mentality in Wales to keep Grand Slam dream alive

Simon Easterby praised Ireland’s mentality for “digging ourselves out of a hole” to overcome Wales in the Six Nations and keep their Grand Slam dream alive.

Ireland started as massive favourites in Cardiff to inflict a 15th-successive defeat on Wales following the departure of their head coach Warren Gatland.

But, having lost centre Garry Ringrose to a 20-minute red card midway through the second quarter, Ireland found themselves 18-10 adrift before rallying in the closing stages to triumph 27-18 and win an eighth Triple Crown in the Six Nations era.

“I’m pleased with the result because we go down a man and then we go down on the scoreboard,” said interim Ireland boss Easterby.

“We had a lot of possession and territory for 30 minutes, but we but didn’t get our accuracy right in scoring the points that we needed.

“We came in at half-time and felt, if we played in the right way, we could dominate them.

“I’m pleased with the way we responded to being in a bit of a hole and digging ourselves out of it and taking the game away from them in the last 20.”

Ireland host France in Dublin in two weeks’ time with a third-successive Six Nations title very much in sight.

It remains to be seen whether Ringrose will be available for the Stadio Olimpico clash after making head-on-head contact with Wales centre Ben Thomas, with Easterby insisting the sanction “could have been yellow”.

On Ireland’s three wins, Easterby said: “We would certainly have taken this a few weeks back.

“The mark of this group is they always want to get better and chase down things that other teams can’t do. That’s something that will continue to drive the team over the next couple of weeks towards France.

Wales’ losing run continued for interim head coach Matt Sherratt, but this was undoubtedly their best performance for some time.

Despite only taking a handful of training sessions since his appointment, Sherratt – who again stressed he had no interest in doing the job full-time – implemented a clear and cohesive game plan, far detached from anything Wales had produced in losing to France and Italy.

“To replicate what we did Tuesday and Thursday, as many times as we did, I was pretty pleased. It shows a good group, very engaged all week.

“We asked for two things – show the crowd some emotion and ambition. Within the structure, which was important, we did that.”

Eight minutes remained when debut-making winger Ellis Mee’s late effort was ruled out following several replays.

“It was a big moment,” said Sherratt. “It was a very tough call. You could tell that by the length of time it took (to check).

“You never know (what happens) if that’s awarded. Ireland are a good team and they have a habit of finishing strongly.”