Ireland will be very ‘hard to knock over’

– Ireland can make history and become the first team to win back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams according to Wales coach Warren Gatland, after his side suffered a 31-7 defeat on Saturday in Dublin.

The Irish secured a bonus point win, for the third time in three matches, although they were at times sloppy and gave the spirited Welsh a scent of an upset when they only led 17-7 with less than 15 minutes remaining.

Ireland had enough in the tank to equal England (2015-17) with the Six Nations record of 11 successive Test wins.

Gatland, despite questioning whether the end scoreline was a fair reflection of the contest, had little doubt Andy Farrell’s team could go on and beat England and Scotland.

“I think they are capable of doing it,” said Gatland, who also coached Ireland back at the turn of the century.

“They have experience, composure and players keep them on the front foot. They will be a hard team to knock over.”

Englishman Farrell is not one for making grand predictions and he claimed to be no clearer about how much better his side may need to be to win the title this season.

“I can’t really answer that because we wanted to be better today,” said Farrell.

“But the opposition always have a say in that, and Wales certainly did.

“For the dominance that we had in the scrum in the first-half, I felt we could have had a bit of a better lead going into half-time.

“But having said that coming out in the second-half I thought we were in the right place, but it was penalties all over the place and it was a bit stop-start.”

Farrell (right), who will miss next year’s Six Nations to coach the British and Irish Lions for their tour of Australia, said the most satisfying thing had been the committment shown by his players.

“There was all sorts of stuff going on in that game, some of it was our own doing but most of it was because we played against a tenacious Welsh side as well. We stuck at it and brought them down in the end,” said Farrell. –