Slam is on for Ireland

WHY do we love sport? Because sometimes it’s a high-wire act with no safety-net. There we were with everything on the line and for a split second you were left to wonder which way it was going to go.

He stepped out and attacked the ball as Wales sought to whip it wide. One second too soon or one second too late – or even half a second in either direction – and he’d have missed it and at that time in the game missing it really was not an option.

Ireland’s lead had been whittled down – remarkably – to three by then and a Welsh try or even a penalty (more likely) would have spelled the end of Ireland’s Grand

Slam dreams for another year and yet, in his first Six Nations campaign, Jacob Stockdale went for it.

He went for it and he nailed it, storming down towards the Lansdowne Road end and over the whitewash for a game-clinching try. That was some real chutzpah from the Ulster winger.

It was his eighth try in seven tests for Ireland and speaks to the confidence of this new generation of Irish rugby players. Stockdale wasn’t the only young gun to make his presence felt on Saturday afternoon.

Andrew Porter looked more the solid in replacing Tadhg

Furlong in the front row as Ireland’s pack – featuring relative newcomers Dan Leavy, in the back row, and James Ryan, at number four – bullied the Welsh for long stretches of the game. That’s the thing that amazes us about the development of this Irish team under Joe Schmidt. They never miss a beat. Furlong gets injured and Porter ( below) steps in and looks right at home straight away.

That’s testament not only to a remarkable strength in depth in at the moment – and to the excellence of the Ulster and Leinster academies in particular – but also to the strength of Schmidt’s vision and his ability to carry it out. One wonders whether even the news which filtered through on Tuesday afternoon that Chris Farrell (another one of those guys to step in for an injured star and not miss a beat) will miss the rest of the championship will hurt Ireland’s chances against Scotland and England. You’d have to imagine it will, but with Garry Ringrose back in training for the last week or so it’s easy to imagine the Leinster man slotting in and carrying on where his Munster colleague left off.

In Schmidt’s Ireland, you see, the team’s the star. They march on.