Best wary of confident Wales as he rejects England coach’s assessment

Rory Best has dismissed Eddie Jones’ latest Wales jibes as “irrelevant” ahead of today’s Six Nations decider in Cardiff.

Jones claimed Wales looked tired ahead of their tilt at a first Grand Slam since 2012, before Welsh boss Warren Gatland questioned why the England coach was offering his opinions on events in Cardiff.

Gatland suggested Jones’ barbs might even backfire and boost Wales, with his players relishing soaking up criticism to fuel their fire.

Captain Best, pictured right, insisted Ireland think Wales look like a team that almost does not know how to lose, while shrugging off England coach Jones’ verbal volley.

“I think there’s a lot of things that go on and the coaches have their own ways of doing it. Those comments come left, right and centre,” said Best. “But we’ve looked at Wales, and they look a really confident bunch.

“We know them really well, a lot of our boys have been on Lions tours with them, we play against them very regularly in the league. So we know how good they are. We don’t think they look tired, they look like a group of players who are really rich in form and very confident. And when you get that you feel you can win any match. “You could see that against Scotland. The way they finished the game strongly doesn’t suggest to me that they were tired. It suggests that never once in that game did they feel they were going to lose it.

“That is a really rare trait to get, it takes a lot of good performances and a lot of time together and that’s where they are.

“So for us we know that’s what we have to contend with.

“It’s largely irrelevant to us what Eddie thinks about Wales, it’s about what we think and how we prepare.”