Wales prop Adam Jones believes familiarity and experience can help Wales win in Ireland in a week-and-a-half’s time.
Warren Gatland’s men travel to Dublin looking to bounce back from defeat to France and Jones is confident that victory over the reigning Grand Slam Champions is a realistic target.
Ireland haven’t lost at home since November 2008 but Jones hopes the experience of playing against and alongside Brian O’Driscoll and co will help secure a repeat of a famous Welsh triumph at Croke Park two years ago.
“We know it’s going to be tough but we won there last time,” said Jones, who was a Grand Slam winner with Wales in 2005 and 2008. “In year’s gone by, Ireland were so far ahead with Munster and Leinster but we’ve played with them with the Lions and we’re confident about what we can do against them.
“We said after the match against France that, regardless of where we’re going to end up in the table, we want to win as many games as we can.”
Defeat against the French in Cardiff came despite a stirring second-half comeback in the first Six Nations fixture to be held in the UK on a Friday night.
Tries from Leigh Halfpenny and Shane Williams saw Wales win the final 40 minutes 20-6 but two interception tries in the first period had left them with too much to do.
Jones, who has played every minute of the first three rounds of the Six Nations, admits that the nature of Friday’s loss makes it particularly hard to take.
“It was our fault again,” added Jones. “It’s massively frustrating. It’s quite annoying…it’s the story (of the tournament) so far. At half-time we said they didn’t look like scoring apart from their two chances, and that was the case all game.
“Against Scotland we were defensively poor but we fronted up and stopped France on the gain line and when they did break through our cover defence was good.
“We feel we’re better than we have shown so far in this competition. To be fair, we showed good character in the second half but it was too late in the end.”
