News article – Style E 4377

Ireland will prioritise a win – their fourth of the 2005 Six Nations – against Wales on Saturday, no matter what is up for grabs, according to coach Eddie O’Sullivan.

Ireland will prioritise a win – their fourth of the 2005 Six Nations – against Wales on Saturday, no matter what is up for grabs, according to coach Eddie O’Sullivan.

With the Championship race still to be decided, a 13-point success for the Irish at the Millennium Stadium, coupled with champions France not beating Italy by more than 41 points in the day’s earlier match, would see O’Sullivan’s men nick the title.

Nonetheless, with the coup of back-to-back Triple Crowns also in the offing, the previously-unbeaten Irish are to target a Cardiff win – first and foremost – by any margin.

“You have to be careful about trying to win games by a certain total – the most important thing is to win the match first. That would give us a Triple Crown. Then we’ll see what happens after that,” O’Sullivan insisted this afternoon.

“It’s important to close the deal first though – it would be foolish to approach it any other way. I’m sure this game will go down to the wire so we must prepare for it with the right mindset, and that means just trying to win.

“It’s been a funny championship this year and predictions that it would be close have proved correct. There are so many different ways it could finish on Saturday. Three teams could win it and there is also a Grand Slam and Triple Crown to be won.”

Munster lock Paul O’Connell – whose debut in 2002 coincided with O’Sullivan’s first game in charge, ironically a 54-10 defeat of a ragged Wales in Dublin – rates the feat of achieving successive Triple Crowns for the first time since 1949, highly.

“After the success of recent years it’s a little bit disappointing that the Triple Crown is all we are playing for this year, but back-to-back Crowns would rank as a fantastic achievement for us. We haven’t lost focus on that.

“This is a team that wants to be in a winning position all the time. We want the weight of expectation on us. We want wins – we want to win Grand Slams – we want to win Six Nations Championships,” added the 6ft 6in star.