The 23-21 triumph in Dublin backed up last season’s 6 Nations triumph at the Millennium Stadium and the World Cup quarter-final victory in Wellington. It was the first time since the Seventies that Wales have beaten the Irish three times on the bounce.
But head coach Gatland, at the start of his second four-year term in charge, reckons there is a good 30% more to come from his side as the tournament builds over the next few weeks.
“I thought we were 70% of what we are capable of doing. We are dangerous when we are playing with confidence,” said Gatland, who was celebrating his 50th match in charge of the Welsh side.
“We got a win today without playing at our best and we have a few players coming back from injury. Gethin Jenkins potentially is available and we don’t think Alun Wyn Jones is too far away and Dan Lydiate.
“We have a little bit of quality in terms of strength in depth to come back into the side and I think that is going to be good for us. We have a massive game at home against Scotland next Sunday.
“If we can win that and make it 2-2 going up to Twickenham we then have two home games after that against Italy and France.”
Gatland also paid tribute to the resilience and character of his side as they three times came from behind before ste4aling the win in the last minute.
“We have been unlucky in the past a few times in the last minute, so we will take that any day,” said Gatland.
“The message to the backs at half-time was run hard and stay square. We knew how big and physical our back line were.
“George North was absolutely world class, particularly when he bumped off Fergus McFadden and passed out of the back for Jonathan Davies to score. It just shows what potential he does have.”
North, who made the second try for Scarlets team mate Jonathan Davies with a bullocking run and wonderful, one-handed off-load, scored his 10th try for Wales to take ownership of the world record for the most Test tries as a teenager from Argentina’s Gustavo Jorge.
But while most things went well for Wales and their coach, there are now injury concerns over skipper Sam Warburton. He picked up a leg injury early in the game and didn’t come out for the second half.
“I suffered a dead leg after 10 or 15 minutes and then I took another knock just before half-time. I will get it iced and treated then the medics will make a call in the 24 hours,” revealed Warburton.
“I couldn’t watch for parts of the game – it was unbelievable. Those sorts of games don’t happen very often,” said the Wales skipper.
“It reminded me of the semi-final in the World Cup, sitting there and knowing you can’t do anything – it was agonising. I thought we were very smart in the second half even with a player down and our big boys ran hard and that made a massive difference.
“Being at the same club as Leigh I see him after training spending ages on the pitch banging them over all day long. It’s a bit different when you have 50,000 Irishmen against you.
“He deserves that because he was gutted about the World Cup semi-final miss and he is chuffed with that kick. He did fantastically well.”
Both captain and coach agreed that the yellow card handed out to Bradley Davies for an off the ball incident with Donnacha Ryan could have merited a red card. Gatland had his say in the dressing room, while Warburton believes his Blues team mate will learn from the error that could have cost Wales the victory.
“It was definitely worth a yellow card. It was cynical and he knows that, but it was one of those decisions you make in the heat of the moment,” said Warburton.
“I am sure he will learn from it. The boys did really well with 14 men by closing in the game a bit and playing in the right areas and doing the right things.”
As for the Gatland, he admitted in his post-match interviews that there was intent in the tackle and that he would have had no arguments if his player had received a red card.
“The yellow card was pretty disappointing. We said to the players after the game, stop hurting yourselves by giving away stupid penalties or stupid yellow cards – we can’t keep doing it to ourselves. The staff in the box had a look at the yellow card and said it should have been a red. It’s 1-1 isn’t it!,” said Gatland.
“There was definite intent there and I wouldn’t have argued with the decision if it had been a red card. With the one in the World Cup there wasn’t intent and that was the difference in the interpretation of the law.”
