Gibson-Park: Scrappy Win, But We’re Trending In Right Direction

Jamison Gibson-Park highlighted Ireland’s failure to ‘apply pressure after points’ as something they will have to work on heading into their Guinness Men’s Six Nations final round showdown with Scotland next Saturday.

Andy Farrell’s men got the four tries they needed to claim a bonus point win against Wales, moving within a point of France at the top of the Six Nations standings, but they were unable to double up on their scores, with a fired-up Welsh side giving them little to no breathing space.

It made for a tense defence-dominated tussle at the Aviva Stadium, as the visitors twice closed the gap to two points – firstly through a barnstorming try from prop Rhys Carré on the stroke of half-time, and then courtesy of James Botham’s close-range effort just past the hour mark.

Even still, despite not firing on all cylinders, Ireland’s attack was clinical enough to create tries for Jacob Stockdale, Jack Crowley, player-of-the-match Jack Conan, and Jamie Osborne, and Conan also had a first-half score ruled out for a prior knock-on from Tom O’Toole.

Reflecting on their third straight win of the Championship and what they need to improve on, Gibson-Park said: “I suppose, first of all, happy to get the win against a tough Welsh side. We knew they were going to put it up to us and they certainly did that. Overall, happy with the win.

“It’s all we could have done (to stay in contention for the title), go out and get five points, and we managed to do that, albeit a bit scrappy, but got there in the end.

“Certainly the second half we were a little bit scrappy coming out of our own end. We like to try and apply pressure after points, and I don’t think we did that very well. After all our tries actually.

“So, that will be something we look at, and then just being better through the middle half of the field and I think they dominated territory in the second half. There’s a few things to look at and improve, for sure.”

The statistics back that up with Wales having almost two-thirds of the territory during the closing 40 minutes, but only scoring once through flanker Botham. Tadhg Beirne came up with a trademark turnover, in the final seconds, to deny them as they pushed for a late losing bonus point.

Although they failed to take some opportunities, especially when trying to build on Stockdale’s early opener, Ireland finished the game with an average of 3.4 points scored from eight attacking 22-metre entries, made over 500 metres from 177 carries, and made seven line breaks with 31 defenders beaten.

Gibson-Park was pleased with how they regained their attacking shape at key stages, most notably with the 15 phases that led to Beirne being held up just short, before they eventually profited from Dafydd Jenkins’ deliberate knock-on, wearing down the defence for Crowley to touch down.

“We’re just trying to play to space as best we can, but I think we went away from our structure a little bit through that middle part of the first half.

“I suppose they defended us pretty well when we did that. At the back end of that first half, I think we got back into a bit of shape and caused them a few problems.”

The frustration was that despite giving little away themselves in defence, with only nine tackles missed from 181 attempts, the hosts were unable to build the sort of scoreboard pressure that ground England into submission in the last round.

A lot of credit for that must go to Wales who produced a monumental defensive display, making a collective 236 tackles with Alex Mann setting a new Six Nations individual record with 32 tackles. Indeed, three of his team-mates, including captain Dewi Lake, made 20-plus tackles.

They proved a tough nut to crack, as was the case in Cardiff last year when a hard-fought victory secured the Triple Crown for Ireland. Steve Tandy’s charges may be bottom of the current Six Nations table, but Gibson-Park believes they have turned a corner, and praised Matt Sherratt’s imprint on their attack.

“Yeah, they’re a serious team and we saw them put it up to Scotland in the last round. Much the same today. I thought they were outstanding on defence and many other facets of the game.

“On the other side of the ball, I think they’re an outstanding attacking team. I think Matt Sherratt is a class coach, and we’ve struggled against him in the past, and even from memory, playing against Cardiff Blues.

“He runs some nice stuff and it’s hard to defend, so they’re certainly trending in the right way and I think it’s good for the game, for sure.

“Like I said, they really put it up to us. We knew it was coming. We’re probably a little bit disappointed with some of the stuff that we put out, but yeah, we’ll go again next week.”

Whatever happens during the remainder of the fourth round, with leaders France targeting a bonus point win in Edinburgh in order to become back-to-back champions, Ireland will have silverware to play for against Scotland next Saturday in the form of the Triple Crown.

After getting their campaign off to a disappointing start in Paris, there have been some fluctuations to the Irish performance levels. However, with three victories in a row, including their biggest ever away triumph over England, and newer players stepping up, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Twice sprung from the bench, Nathan Doak became Ireland’s fourth debutant of the 2025/26 season, O’Toole and Nick Timoney made their first Six Nations starts, and there were Championship bows for Tom Stewart and Tom Farrell as replacements, taking the number of players to get their first taste of Six Nations rugby in recent weeks to ten.

“I think it was pretty clear for everybody to see in that first performance (against France) that we weren’t at the races, so that was very disappointing for us and we knew it wasn’t us as a team,” admitted Gibson-Park.

“Thankfully, I suppose, the following couple of weeks we turned it around a small bit, made some improvements across the board.

“The most impressive thing for me is we’ve gone out and we’ve really attacked the game and put the ball in space and played footy that we’re enjoying and we can be proud of.

“Certainly there’s areas to get better for sure, but yeah, I suppose (we’re) kind of trending in the right direction.”