Key events
Preamble
It’s Friday night in Dublin and Ireland welcome Wales to the Aviva Stadium.
What a difference a week made prior to their performances in the previous round of matches; so imagine what the fortnight since could deliver. That will be the hope of the respective fans in anticipation of the game to come.
Ireland – all dynamism and nous in their dismantling of England, with more than a few outstanding individual performances thrown in – will surely look for a second record score on the bounce as par at home against the 2026 vintage of Wales.
For their part, Wales must continue their impressive feat vs Scotland of not looking like a touring rugby team that managed one training session after an 11 hour flight followed by an 11 hour drinking bender. They were so much better two weeks ago than at any time in the preceding one-hundred and two that any fall away from that is not acceptable. They still lost in Cardiff – as they will tonight most likely – but sometimes progress is measured in not receiving four yellow cards in a match and keeping it competitive for seventy minutes. It is what it is.
We’ll be off and running in an hour or so.
