Jeremy Guscott has used his weekly column with the BBC to heap praise on Ireland, while simultaneously saying we will still be underdogs during the crunch clash against Wales in Cardiff. The former England centre also reckons we have fewer players of Lions quality than our Celtic neighbours.
Unlike his controversial selection two weeks ago, Guscott includes five Irish in his team of the week; Murray, Sexton, Henshaw, Ross and O'Connell. The scrum-half was named his player of the week, a view echoed by many BBC pundits during the live broadcast. He saves his greatest praise for the team as a whole saying Ireland are playing 'World Cup winning rugby'.
Guscott gives many reasons for this, including Ireland's high rate of recovery from their own kicked balls; 6 from 19 against England. England themselves recovered none from the same amount of kicks, particularly poor for a team amongst the favourites for the World Cup. A tight defence and accurate place kicking is also cited by Guscott;
Looking beyond the Six Nations, you can see how many teams have won World Cup finals by not conceding tries and knocking over the penalties - playing the tight percentages like Ireland are.
However, he goes onto say that the Welsh will be favourites in Cardiff, not something reflected by either the bookmakers or most other pundits. Guscott mentions confidence after the France game, home advantage and their big name players fit as reasons for this, all perfectly reasonable. His claim about the quality of Wales players compared to our own, however, is up for debate.
If we talk in terms of players of the highest quality - those who can win a series as part of the British and Irish Lions - then Wales have more players in that echelon than Ireland.
We're not quite sure that one adds up, most of Wales top-guns have been misfiring as of late. Guscott will argue that he means players that have been quality over a longer period, yet if they can't perform in a Six Nations, how would they get on against New Zealand? Regardless of this, with all players firing at their best it is likely Ireland would match, if not beat Wales for starting Lions players.
