Super Saturday promises to be an exciting day, three games with massive potential to be cracking affairs. Italy host France, and they’ll be looking to break their streak of losses against an incredibly inconsistent French team, Scotland visit Twickenham with a tough task at hand, not least due to the array of injuries they are managing, and The Principality stadium will stage the grand Slam decider; can Ireland throw a spanner in the works and upset Wales’ hopes for the perfect run into the World Cup in Japan?

That’s the fixture I’ll be focusing on, and in particular, the areas Wales will excel and cause problems for Ireland, and in reverse, the areas that Ireland can look to exploit.

In my last article I spoke in detail about Ireland’s kicking game and how it has adapted since round 1. This will again be a crucial part of the plan if they are to succeed in Cardiff and continue their recent upturn in form. Poor kicking; particularly long, aimless kicks or kicks with a poor chase, will give the Welsh back three far too much space and opportunity to counter attack as they have shown they are incredibly capable of thus far. Wales tend to play a two person backfield in phase play, with the fullback and open side winger generally splitting the pitch in two. This is difficult to kick for territory in, as they will usually cover the touchlines pretty well. Ways of counteracting that are short, sharp box kicks over the ruck on the short side. These types of kicks, which Ben Youngs executed well several times against them, are effective in that the spin generated causes the ball to propel off the ground and maintain its pace as it bounces towards touch.

It’s a dangerous kick for a full back to try and gather since you generally run the risk of being pretty close to carrying it into touch if you do catch it. An excellent example of this is shown below from Ben Youngs, and this would be something we could see Murray trying on Saturday afternoon. Jack Carty also put in two pin point touch finders when he came off the bench against France last weekend, and it is something he does regularly for Connacht, so if he were called on from the bench I think he would have the confidence and ability to put this tactic into action.

Excellent box kick from Ben Youngs into the Welsh 22

Throughout the championship, Wales’ forwards have shown good handling skills, most notably in their ability to shift the ball on as a one out runner. It has become a strong part of their game, where a one out runner takes a ball from 9, and before contact, he passes the ball to a runner outside him, something we called a plus one in my playing days. This changes the point of attack, potentially catching out a gap in the defensive line if someone shoots out of the line to make a big hit. Continually doing this will make the defence second guess, and ultimately may lead to the defensive line not rushing up as quickly.

Another method of negating the rush defence, and this is something that was pointed out to me by a reader of my last article, is delaying the pass at the base of the ruck once the scrum half puts hands on.

The law states that the ball is not out of the ruck until the scrum half picks it up, meaning that even if the scrum half puts his hands on the ball at the base of a ruck, it hasn’t left until he picks it up and passes it. In the clip below, we see Gareth Davies place his hands on the ball, delay, look up at the English defensive line who have now stepped offside, and then pass the ball. At this point the referee plays advantage since the English players were offside and didn’t retreat before making the tackle. This is an incredibly effective tactic early on in a game, and ensures the defence hold their line until the ball is played, buying the first receiver that all important fraction of a second to play the ball later in the game. Ireland will need to be aware of these tactics, and make sure they don’t edge offside as England did a number of times, conceding soft penalties that will cost them points.

Gareth Davies’ clever delay of pass forced the offside from England

As well as plus one passes, Welsh forwards have also been keen to offload on the gain line, causing issues for defences by getting behind the line and freeing their hands, putting players like Jonathan Davies into space. Ireland will be aware of this threat and will try and tackle the ball and minimise the risk of the offload by double tackling where possible.

One area of weakness, and I say weakness even though it has still been fairly solid, is the Welsh lineout. With a success rate of 76%, this is the lowest success rate in the championship, and quite a good bit lower as the only team below 85%. Ireland have had a success rate of 86%, and although it isn’t the highest, it has been a solid set piece throughout the tournament, with Peter O’Mahony at the top of the stats pile, receiving 22 successful lineouts thus far. He and Ultan Dillane also rank highly in the lineout steals, being credited with 2 each, with no Welsh player yet to have stolen a throw in according to Six Nations stats. It seems that the combination of Welsh inconsistency with the dead ball and Ireland’s ability to steal could be a crucial combination in manufacturing turnovers on Saturday.

All in all, Ireland will have to produce their best performance this year to deny Wales a Grand Slam, who look to be very close to the top of their game. While there are weak areas, they are few and far between, so consistency and accurate execution will be key on Saturday.