Gareth Davies had very high hopes for the Ireland game.
When the Ireland fixture was bearing down, Gareth Davies saw an opportunity.
The scrumhalf envisaged his Dragons running riot in the Lion’s Den. Ideally, it would be annihilation, but his hope was for a big win.
Wales had torn Scotland asunder in their Six Nations opener but a 12-6 away defeat to England saw them lose ground on the leaders. To Davies’ mind, his team could get back on title-winning track by pulling ut all the stops.
Absolutely gas #SixNations #IREvWAL https://t.co/LpGFRUS9h4
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) February 24, 2018
Ahead of the game, Wales coach Warren Gatland had rebuffed comments that Ireland were the championship’s best side.
Davies went one further. We often hear players criticised for giving bland statements to the press but the Scarlets No.9 did no such thing.
He boldly told Sky Sports
“We are targeting a bonus-point win this weekend against Ireland so hopefully we can score some tries and come away with a good win. With players we have got I think we are more than capable of doing that.”
After 30 minutes of action at Lansdowne Road, Davies and Wales were backing up the talk. They led a misfiring Ireland 13-5 and Davies had run in a try under the posts.
With Johnny Sexton finally landing a penalty, after 35 minutes, to make it 13-8, Davies was the first to approach him and have a chirp in his ear. Welsh confidence was high but Ireland upped the stakes with three tries in the space of 17 minutes, either side of half-time.
In the end, it was Ireland securing the try-scoring bonus point after only 53 minutes and running in a fifth try, for good measure, at the death.
As for Davies and Wales, they left with ‘0’ points and with Gatland admitting a mid-table finish was the best they could hope for.
Credit to Davies for his pre-match honesty but one has to own such comments when the wheels come off.
