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Wales player ratings vs Ireland | Six Nations 2022

Nick Tompkins /Getty

Fronted by new skipper Dan Biggar, Wayne Pivac’s men were given the tough task of chasing an away scalp in Dublin to open their Six Nations campaign.

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Unfortunately, it didn’t go to plan. You will be hard-pressed to think of a worse opening day of a campaign for Wales. The story of the day was Ireland making some of Wales’ strongest players look very ordinary.

15. LIAM WILLIAMS – 3
Ran a couple of decent angles and made a good tackle on Sexton, but Williams didn’t shine with the ball. A difficult day to play fullback, and it showed.

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14. JOHNNY MCNICHOLL – 3
Had few opportunities with ball in hand, and his aerial threat was nullified by Ireland. A frustrating afternoon for McNicholl, who couldn’t really get into the game.

13. JOSH ADAMS – 2
Pivac thrust Adams into a role which does not suit his strengths. Through no fault of his own, Adams really struggled to adapt to his positional switch. Was lucky to cop a yellow card.

12. NICK TOMPKINS – 3
Had to cover a lot on Adams’ inside and by all means did a decent job. Didn’t do much with the ball.

11. LOUIS REES-ZAMMIT – 5
Caught narrow on Ireland’s opening try but had a mixed bag from there on out. Made a few good tackles on Mack Hansen and made one nice break. Hard game for Zammit, but he kicked and tackled well.

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10. DAN BIGGAR – 2
Wales’ new captain had a fairly anonymous first half and was outplayed by his peer Sexton in the second. Jaco Peyper lasted the whole game without wearing ear defenders, which is definitely a plus point.

9. TOMOS WILLIAMS – 4
Today was a tough gig for any scrum-half. Despite Wales securing decent ruck-speed, Ireland shut off Williams’ options significantly. By no means a terrible showing, but Williams didn’t quite look himself today.

1. WYN JONES – 5
Did a decent job containing the titanic Tadhg Furlong, which deserves some credit in itself.

2. RYAN ELIAS – 3
Didn’t get much chance to do much with the ball against a strong Irish pack. Was functional at scrum time but didn’t make a significant impact.

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3. TOM FRANCIS – 3
Neutral at scrum time until conceding a penalty at the end of the first half. Had a good scrum in the early second half before being replaced.

4. WILL ROWLANDS – 2
A poor cleanout on Aaron Wainwright gave Sexton a free shot at three points early on, which was luckily missed. Didn’t make an impact thereafter.

5. ADAM BEARD – 4
Tackled well and did his best to disrupt the Irish line-out, but gave away a couple of penalties in the process. Targeted effectively by the Irish front five.

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6. ELLIS JENKINS – 3
Outplayed by the Irish back-row. Clearly well targeted and didn’t get a chance to make one of his trademark turnovers.

7. TAINE BASHAM – 4
Had a few good carries and tackles but struggled to get into the breakdown. Basham never lacks effort, but facing the monumental Josh Van Der Flier was a huge learning curve. At least he has the most confusing try of 2022 to show for it.

8. AARON WAINWRIGHT – 3
After an outstanding Autumn, Wainwright was kept anonymous. Showed intent to carry hard, but was tackled well. Hopefully Wainwright gets more chances to shine later in the tournament.

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Comments

2 Comments
J
J 1020 days ago

LRZ was not a 5.. poor game from him, 3 at best. Agree with most ratings but Basham at least a 7.

i
isaac 1020 days ago

Should speedy start ahead of Bigger???

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall' 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall'
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