Looking at Ireland's Six Nations victory over Wales at the weekend, the thing that stood out most was how seamless Andy Farrell's team make everything look on both sides of the ball.
Not only are they incredibly clinical in attack, but they also offer very little encouragement to their opponent when they are out of possession. They hardly gave up a scoring chance during their last two games against Italy and Wales, conceding a combined total of seven points across the two fixtures.
With two games still to come, they look like heavy favourites to go and win a second consecutive Grand Slam.
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Rugby: Wales clip shows why Ireland are tough to play against
Ireland have won a massive amount of plaudits for their performances in this year's Six Nations, with quite a few high profile figures praising their showings.
In a clip that has been doing the rounds on social media, you can see what effect trying to defend against Ireland for a sustained period of time had on Wales prop Dillon Lewis in the buildup to Tadhg Beirne's try on Saturday.
Tired prop is tired. pic.twitter.com/Nt9b54AB76
— Riaan Louw (@Ringo26) February 25, 2024
With Ireland maintaining some incredible ruck speed throughout this sequence of play, you can see why it would be so tiring to defend against.
Speaking on the BBC's Rugby Union Daily, former Wales star Sam Warburton admitted that he was 'in awe' of how Andy Farrell's men have been performing so far in this championship.
I watch Ireland and I'm actually genuinely in awe of how they're playing.
We can all picture it and cast our mind back to when we were playing for the couple of seasons where Wales were pretty good, we were nowhere near that level.
Their work rate off the ball, both sides on attack and D, that accuracy is almost unseen at international level, how comfortable they are, everyone gets into shape quickly. I thought the World Cup was so crushing for them, and they've responded to that really well.
South Africa fans will hate me for saying this, but I still think they're the best team in the world. I've never seen a team who were that complete.
Ireland will be hoping to maintain that level of performance over the coming fixtures, with a game against England at Twickenham next on the horizon.
Should they get the job done there, they will be well on course to claim a Grand Slam when they host Scotland the following weekend.
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