Warren Gatland could wish he had golfing great Arnold Palmer in his changing room on Saturday.
“I never quit trying, I never felt I didn’t have a chance to win, even when the odds seemed entirely against me,” said the four-time Masters winner.
Rarely have the odds been so utterly stacked against Wales than this week.
They head to the Aviva Stadium to face the defending Six Nations champions looking for a first win in Dublin, in 12 years.
Some bookmakers are giving Wales a 22-point head-start this weekend and are offering the same odds for a Wales victory as the Tories winning an outright majority at the next general election.
“It’s a hell of an experience at the Aviva against, for me, the best team in the world,” said wing Alex Cuthbert, part of that last victory in 2012.
“Gatland is going to know exactly where his young team is after playing there.
“Ireland are on fire at the moment and will be coming at [Wales] for the full 80 minutes.”
Statistics show the full scale of the challenge facing Wales.
Cuthbert played again four years later in 2016 when Wales came within four minutes of another Dublin victory, before Johnny Sexton’s late penalty settled a 16-16 draw.
Since then Ireland have dominated this fixture, winning the last three championship meetings in Dublin. They have never previously won four in a row at home to Wales.
But this is an Ireland team seeking a more significant piece of history, to become only the fifth team in the tournament’s 142-year history to claim back-to-back Grand Slams – and the first in the Six Nations era.
Since the tournament was expended to include Italy in 2000, Ireland have won more games than any other nation, while only England have scored more tries or points.
Six Nations wins (2000 – 2024)
- Ireland 83
- England 81
- France 78
- Wales 64
- Scotland 40
- Italy 13
Figures provided by Six Nations official partners OPTA.
‘It is going to hurt’
Wales are far from alone in struggling at the Aviva Stadium. Ireland have won 38 of their last 40 Test matches on home soil, with only England (2019) and France (2021) winning in Dublin in that time.
The current run of 17 consecutive home wins is Ireland’s best in their Test history.
Another win over Wales this weekend would see Peter O’Mahony’s men equal the tournament’s all-time record of 11 straight wins set by England between 2015 and 2017.
In contrast Wales are in a desperate slump.
Since coming within seconds of a Grand Slam in Paris in 2021, they have managed just two wins from their last 12 games in the Six Nations.
The last of those 10 defeats were narrow losses to Scotland (27-26) and England (16-14) this month as Gatland’s rebuild offers glimmers of hope.
“It’s a completely new challenge, so completely different to the first two games,” said Wales prop Gareth Thomas.
“It is going to hurt, but the boys have spoken about how exciting it is if we get it right in terms of what we need to do.
“Ireland are playing some really good rugby right now, but people are letting them play like that. So it is up to us to go at them defensively and stop that smooth attack they’ve got.
“We have to start fast, go at them and not accept their style of play, otherwise we have no chance.”