Ireland coach makes feelings clear on Wales and singles out one key player

The Ireland defence coach was a contender to succeed Warren Gatland as Wales boss last year

Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby has described Wales as a well-coached side and singled out Aaron Wainwright as one of the best ball carriers in this year’s Six Nations.

Wales have lost 13 Six Nations games on the bounce but put in a significantly improved performance against Scotland last time out before slipping to a narrow defeat. One positive has been the performance of Wainwright who has consistently got his side over the gainline.

Easterby, who was a strong contender for the Wales job following the departure of Warren Gatland last year, believes they will be a tough nut to crack for Ireland at the Aviva Stadium next Friday.

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“I think they’ve got a really good coaching group that have gained confidence from this weekend’s performance,” Easterby told RTE.

“I know it didn’t deliver the result that they would have liked, but they’ve got some strong carriers, like Aaron Wainwright is probably carrying as well as any forward in the Six Nations at the moment, and often that’s on the back foot.

“But they get into your 22, they’re hard to defend against. They play with speed and they play with width.

“I thought [Sam] Costelow made a big difference to them on the weekend when he had front-foot ball.

“It allowed him to play on top of Scotland and make it difficult.”

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Easterby is well-acquainted with Welsh rugby having spent the majority of his playing career representing Llanelli and the Scarlets.

Last season Wales, under the control of the then interim head coach Matt Sherratt, pushed Ireland close in Cardiff.

Sherratt is the attack coach this time around and Easterby believes they will pose a similar challenge with ball in hand.

“I think there’s still some attacking structures that are similar with Matt Sherratt (above) being involved,” he told RTE.

“Obviously there’s different personnel in terms of players on the pitch, but certainly the way they want to play when they get front-foot ball, the way they want to play to width and the way they attack, I thought was some of their best rugby on the weekend against Scotland.

“So, I think obviously things will change a little bit [from 2025], but we’ll certainly take a little bit of that and make sure that we’re aware of what they want to try and do when they have the ball.

“They have been very good in the 22 actually. There have been five tries and four of them have come from tap-penalties so they are really effective once they get into that part of the pitch.

“They are growing in confidence, they will feel like they should have held out and beaten Scotland but they had a bit of a switch-off on a halfway restart which is seven points for nothing almost and that might have been the difference.

“They are well coached and a proud group of players and we need to make sure that we keep getting better ourselves.”