Ireland captain Mick Galwey has warned his team-mates to expect a Welsh revenge mission when Graeme Henry's side travel to Lansdowne Road for Sunday's Six Nations Championship opener. The Welsh side were on the receiving end of a record 36-6 mauling at the hands of the Irish when the two sides last met in the delayed 2001 Championship encounter at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium last autumn.
"Wales will definitely want to bounce back," Galwey said. "They'll obviously be very disappointed with their last outing but they are coming here with a very strong side. They had a lot of injuries then and we've got a lot now so it's going to be tough."
Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan, who takes charge of the Ireland team for the first time on Sunday following the pre-Christmas dismissal of Warren Gatland, agreed with Galwey's assessment of the Welsh mood.
"I think the Cardiff game will be totally irrelevant to Sunday's game for a number of reasons," O'Sullivan said. "In the autumn they had quite a few injuries and you can see that now by the number of changes (nine) to the team. They've players back now and some new ones as well and the wheel has turned in terms of injuries as now we have all the injuries to deal with. So Cardiff is about as irrelevant as it could be at this point."
Filed by Sinéad Kissane
