Liam Toland believes there is "no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water" when it comes to the reaction to Ireland's defeat to Wales in the Six Nations.
The former Leinster joined Off The Ball on tonight's show alongside ex-Ireland flanker Shane Jennings to review Saturday's game and Toland accentuated some of the positives.
"They're a really good rugby team, a lot of whom are Lions. There's a serious quality about that, so putting yourself into a winning position with six and a half minutes to go - as in being down four points - after coming through all that is still very impressive from Ireland. So I would agree that there's no reason to throw out the baby with the bath water," said Toland, who feels lineout issues can be ironed out.
Meanwhile, Jennings highlighted the refereeing decisions of Wayne Barnes.
"The majority of their penalties were kickable penalties and that's what killed us. Barnes gave Wales two yellow cards. I think they were 14 or 15 penalties, Ireland were 10 or 11. It's not as if he wrote us off the park," said Jennings, before continuing:
"I think the things were he was a bit inconsistent on that and the scrum, I genuinely thought we had the upper hand and you usually get rewarded for your dominance. That wasn't the case at all. So that was where the beef was coming from, from the public and I would echo those sentiments as well."
Liam Toland also joined us on the show and detailed just how Wales were able to kill much of Ireland's attacking impetus and momentum, while Jennings explained why Sam Warburton was so effective against Joe Schmidt's side.
"Warburton physically imposed himself and it's probably the best I've ever seen him play. He was so destructive at the breakdown," said Jennings.
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