After seeing off the challenge of Italy in their opening Six Nations fixture, defending champions Wales will look to continue their good form when they come up against Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday.
Where to Watch Live
The game is scheduled for a 2.30 pm GMT (8 pm IST) start with live coverage on Sony Six in India. The match is not available for live streaming online in the country, but UK viewers can watch the action live online HERE or HERE. Live stream the game in Australia HERE, while New Zealand viewers can watch the action HERE. The game can be live streamed in the US HERE, while the Middle East and North Africa viewers can go HERE. Viewers in rest of Africa can catch the action through live streaming HERE.
Wales really had to dig in deep and hold off the challenge from Italy, with the champions eventually prevailing 23 15 in the opening encounter of the Six Nations tournament last Saturday. Ireland are coming off a comfortable 28-6 win over Scotland, and forwards coach Robin McBryde believes if Wales can keep Ireland quiet early on, then they could ease to victory.
"We know we finish strongly," McBryde said. "The last 20 minutes of games, that's when we really benefit from all the physical training that we are doing. If we have got our noses ahead with 20 minutes to go I think we will be pretty confident.
"We know that Ireland score pretty much the majority of their points in the first half. Scotland managed to keep hold of the ball early on but they didn't really capitalise on all that possession. So, we have got to make sure we are on the money."
Wales could have Sam Warburton back in the starting lineup, after the skipper came from the bench during the win against Italy. "It was good to get a hit-out just to get the lungs going again, just to feel getting back up off the floor and working hard," Warburton was quoted as saying by the Six Nations official website. "You try to replicate that in training.
"It always takes a game to get that timing back, that's why it was good to compete at the breakdown last weekend and get some timing going. It was good to get rid of the cobwebs."
Joe Schmidt believes keeping the Wales big men quiet will be key, with the Ireland coach emphasising on the need for his side to play smart against their formidable opponents.
"Man for man they are a very big side and we are going to have to be fairly smart about the way we play," he said. "There are one or two things we will try to implement on Saturday but we'll have to assess post-match whether they have worked or not.
"We have a six-day turnaround so we trained for an hour on Tuesday, for an hour on Thursday, and we have the captain's run on Friday.
"The first three days after the Scotland match were largely used for recovery as the match was played at a reasonably high tempo, so we've just been keeping a lid on things training-wise."
