Wales will aim to erase memories of a dreadful Dublin away-day when they launch their Six Nations campaign against defending champions Ireland on Sunday.
And Wales captain Sam Warburton, who is among just five survivors in the starting line-up from a 26-3 Aviva Stadium defeat two years ago, believes his team must be “physical and direct” when they return to the scene of that crushing loss.
Wales have toppled Ireland in Dublin since then – they claimed a World Cup warm-up win last summer – but there is a degree of pain that lingers from 2014 when Ireland’s forwards battered Warburton and company into submission.
“They just got a really good start – we had to defend quite a few phases for the first 20 or 30 minutes,” Warburton said. “All I remember is the Irish crowd were so loud, and you could see the team feeding off that, and they kept growing through the game.
“Trying to stop that early on will be pretty important. You want to start every international game well, but in particular on that occasion I can remember them getting their tails up as soon as the crowd started getting behind them.
“So I think we have to try to stick a pin in that balloon early on by becoming physical and direct and executing our game-plan to get us into the game pretty early. Since I’ve been involved, Ireland have always been one of the toughest fixtures in the Six Nations – every year we play them.
“Last year (in Cardiff ) was probably the most physical Six Nations fixture I’ve played in, in terms of the way I felt after that match. It’s pretty much the same year on year with Ireland, so we always expect a huge amount from them.”
Since that defeat – Wales’ heaviest championship loss since 2006 – they have won six out of eight Six Nations games against all opponents. And after a solid World Cup showing when Warburton’s men suffered a narrow quarter-final reversal against South Africa after being hit by repeated injury setbacks during the tournament, their Six Nations title prospects look strong.
Meanwhile, Tommy O’Donnell cannot fathom how he has turned a career-threatening dislocated hip into Six Nations selection inside six months.
O’Donnell believes only “a huge amount of luck” has let him beat the nasty hip injury he suffered in August and recover in time to start for Ireland on Sunday.
Any fracture to his hip socket in the injury he suffered in Ireland’s 35-21 World Cup warm-up win over Wales in Cardiff on August 8 could have jeopardised his career, O’Donnell revealed.
The 28-year-old might have missed the World Cup, but he is acutely aware how fortunate he is to have earned his return to the Test arena.
“When I was lying on the turf in the Millennium Stadium I didn’t think this was possible,” he said. “When I walk into the dressing room, see my jersey there on Sunday, it will make it all the sweeter. It will really drive me on I hope.
“It’s just a huge amount of luck that I’m back in this time. A posterior dislocation like I had, it could have been far worse. It could have been never playing rugby again.
“But it was good news from the minute we went in and got the CT scan and the X-rays. Nothing was broken, there was no damage to the acetabulum, the hip joint, and that was big news.”
