Wales head coach Warren Gatland has said that Ireland will know they were ‘a little bit lucky’ following their Grand Slam win over England on Saturday.
Ireland won just the third Grand Slam in their history with a 24-15 win at Twickenham to top the Six Nations table undefeated.
Johnny Sexton’s match winning drop goal against France and Jacob Stockdale’s intercept try against Wales stand out as the defining moments of Ireland’s campaign and Gatland was quick to highlight the nature of Ireland’s unbeaten run following Wales’ win over France.
“Congratulations to Ireland on the Grand Slam, it’s fantastic, they deserve that,” he said.
“But they will know that they were a little bit lucky as well. You need a little bit of luck and first game the drop goal from Johnny Sexton completely changes everything.
“Also, if we don’t throw an intercept in the last minute in Dublin and the ball goes to hand it changes our fortunes as well.
“I think that’s a massive positive for the NatWest 6 Nations and the countries competing. In fairness, you had to feel sorry for Italy as they could have easily won as well.
“We’ve got to be very positive about this competition, we’ve got to talk it up say how good it is because I think it’s been a very competitive year and there’s been some great rugby.”
Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt had a different view on the win over Wales and praised Sexton for his perseverance after his drop goal in Paris.
“To show the steel that they did, the commitment and just plain, ordinary rugby ability to keep the ball,” Schmidt said. “And then the exceptional ability Johnny has to put the ball between the uprights.
“And as frustrating as it was for Wales to get close to us, I never really felt like we’d give it up, and then Jacob raced away. He was totally in control of that edge defence.”
“And that eight minutes after half-time today totally summed up this team. We’ve probably totalled more tries than ever. But that pure resilience, the ability to get back up in the defensive line, that was exceptional.”
