Impressive tries from Dafydd Howells, Seb Davies and Joshua Adams in the opening 20 minutes laid the platform for victory over an Irish side they defeated in last season’s Six Nations Championship.
Their second victory of this year’s competition was made all the more impressive by the fact Allan Lewis’ side played 20 minutes of the game with only 14 men. Tom Phillips was shown a yellow card in the first half and Ollie Griffiths in the second.
Wales made the perfect start to the game when full back Howells raced in for a try, after barely two minutes. Jarrod Evans failed to convert, but found his range when converting Wales’ second try, from Blues and Pontypridd lock Seb Davies.
Scarlets wing Adams helped himself to a third try – Evans converting once again – and though Phillips was sent to the sin bin by referee , they were 22-0 to the good thanks to an Evans penalty on the stroke of half time.
Ireland rallied in the second half and twice crossed the Wales line. Full back Ciaran Gaffney and scrum half
Charlie Rock both helped themselves to tries with Joey Carbery converting one. Still, Wales held on with a degree of comfort to set up a crunch match for fifth place against the young Wallabies at the weekend.
Wales coach co-ordinator Allan Lewis said: “The boys played some superb rugby and deserved to be 22-0 up. They played some excellent attacking rugby and put width on the ball. Ireland came back through their forwards, but our defence was quite superb throughout the second half.
“The tries were good enough to grace any international field. We arrived at the game confident in our ability to create chances and we showed that against a very proud and determined side.
“The young coaches had encouraged the players to attack with ball in hand when appropriate and there was good evidence of that this evening. The only negative was the indiscipline, we made it harder for ourselves by spending 20 minutes with 14 men and we will have to look at that before Saturday.
“We will have a couple of days to recover and to have a look at the injuries we have. We will assess them over next two days and then have a good look at Australia.
“We are delighted to have a crack at Australia because other than Japan we have only played Six Nations sides in this tournament.”
Wales U20 team v Ireland:
Dafydd Howells (Ospreys/ Neath); Elis-Wyn Benham (Blues/ Cardiff), Garyn Smith (Blues/ Pontypridd), Owen Watkin (Ospreys/ Bridgend), Joshua Adams (Scarlets/ Llanelli); Jarrod Evans (Blues/ Pontypridd), Tomos Williams (Blues/ Pontypridd); Luke Garrett (Dragons/ Cross Keys), Liam Belcher (Blues/ Pontypridd), Dillon Lewis (Blues/ Pontypridd), Seb Davies (Blues/ Pontypridd), Adam Beard (Ospreys/ Aberavon), Tom Phillips (Scarlets/ Llanelli), Ollie Griffiths (capt, Dragons/ Newport), Harrison Keddie (Dragons/ Ebbw Vale)
Replacements: Torin Myhill (Scarlets/ Llanelli) for Liam Belcher; Keagan Bale (Dragons/ Cross Keys) for Luke Garrett; Joe Jones (Blues/ Cardiff) for Dillon Lewis; Joe Thomas (Ospreys/ Swansea) for Garyn Smith
