Ireland’s Six Nations title ambitions will hinge on them not losing out on the road in Wales on Friday night. This is a huge game down in Cardiff with Ireland starting in second place behind championship leaders England by three points. England have a home game against Scotland the following day and so Ireland need to keep pace and heap some pressure on the Red Rose before their game. Ireland will play host to England on the final weekend of the championship season so that could well be the title decider.
But first Ireland have to get past Wales, which isn’t going to be easy. The Irish are the top try scorers in the championship so far with 104 points posted over three games, but they have suffered a loss out on the road already this term, losing 27-22 at Murrayfield against Scotland on the opening weekend of this season’s championship. Ireland don’t have a bad record in Cardiff, having posted a W11 D1 L3 record in their last fifteen contested there.
The Irish haven’t conceded a second-half try so far in this season’s championship and they have converted each of their last sixteen kicks at goal as well. So they know how to dig in, they know how to grind and in that loss against Scotland, they produced too many errors and there is room for improvement there around the fringes of the game that they need to step up following their win over France last time out. Keith Earls and Simon Zebo are 9/1 joint favourites in the first tryscorer market at Betfred.
Wales went to Murrayfield to face Scotland last time out and, like Ireland, they lost there. There was a massive amount of mistakes from the Welsh in that one. They did win their last home Six Nations match aginast Ireland and they could win consecutive home games against the Irish for the first time since an eight match winning streak between 1969 and 1982. They have returned a pretty poor record on home soil against the men in green, but then the Welsh haven’t lost back to back games in Cardiff since 2013.
It has been a poor season in the champion from them, with a defeat against England as well on the board, sandwiching a win over Italy. There has been fight from them though despite all the mistakes and the actual results, they had England rattled for a long period in their clash for example and it was only a burst of second half enthusiasm that saw them stretch their legs against Italy. There has been a lot of criticism through at individual performances from the Welsh team this season, including George North who is trading at a price of 11/1 in the Betfred First Try scorer market.
Wales v Ireland Six Nations Betting Odds
Ireland 8/13, Wales 6/4, Draw 22/1
Wales v Ireland Six Nations Prediction
The Welsh have just a point difference of +5 on the board this season in the Six Nations, so you can probably expect this game to be pretty close. But an Ireland -3 handicap for a price of Even Money with Betfred looks solid value. Ireland have the edge over the two sides at the moment and they have a pretty solid track record going against the Dragons. Look for a narrow win for the Irish to set themselves up for that showdown against England on the final weekend.
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