Good on him.SCOTLAND: G Metcalfe (Glasgow); B Laney (Edinburgh), J McLaren (Glasgow), G Townsend (Castres), C Paterson (Edinburgh); D Hodge (Edinburgh), B Redpath (Sale); T Smith (Northampton), G Bulloch (Glasgow), M Stewart (Northampton), S Murray (Saracens), S Grimes (Newcastle), J White (Glasgow), A Pountney (Northampton, capt), S Taylor (Edinburgh). Replacement: G Graham (Newcastle) for Smith, 62.ENGLAND: J Robinson (Sale); A Healey (Leicester), M Tindall (Bath), W Greenwood (Harlequins), B Cohen (Northampton); J Wilkinson (Newcastle), K Bracken (Saracens); G Rowntree (Leicester), S Thompson (Northampton), J White (Bristol), M Johnson (Leicester, capt), B Kay (Leicester), R Hill (Saracens), N Back (Leicester), J Worsley (Wasps). Replacements: N Duncombe (Harlequins) for Bracken, h-t; D Grewcock (Bath) for Kay, 69; I Balshaw (Bath) for Tindall, 72; J Leonard (Harlequins) for White, 75; C Hodgson (Sale) for Wilkinson, 82.Referee: S Walsh (New Zealand).. This was a slaughter by any description, but even lambs put up more of a struggle.

Ireland racked up a record number of points over Wales who proved that there can be smoke without fire – the self-styled dragons were all huff and no puff. It may even be enough to blow a number of changes through the shell-shocked Welsh administration.Not that there was any hint of resignation by Henry after one of the most inept Wales performances, at least since the 51-0 defeat against France four years ago But this must still rank very low in their history “We are very disappointed,” he offered. “We just didn’t get a rub of the green.” In fact that is just what they did get. Their collective nose was rubbed well and truly into the Lansdowne Road turf.At least Henry was big enough to say: “We’ve got no excuses.” But that is just the start of the list, they had no idea, no plan, no basic skills, and for much of the match they did not even have the ball. The early double loss of the lock Chris Wyatt and the centre Jamie Robinson both with ankle injuries – the latter’s believed to be quite serious – did undermine Welsh ambitions, but the brilliance of Ireland cannot be ignored.”They were superb,” Henry added He was right From pack to backs the Irish gave it everything Wales could not live with them.

The two props Peter Clohessy, winning his 50th cap, and John Hayes put in a staggering display, behaving like two rampaging rhinos as they thundered into the thickest of the Welsh cover and scattered it to all parts of Lansdowne Road. He opened the scoring when first Humphreys then Wallace slipped through the stationary Wales players like a roller-blader through traffic. The second try came from a line-out, with the new boy Paul O’Connell being driven over to mark his debut with a score That though was that as far as he was concerned. Eight minutes later O’Connell left the pitch with a head wound and a leg injury and was ruled out for the remainder of the game.But still the tries (and Humphreys’ penalties) kept coming Touchdown of the day involved Clohessy and Hayes. First Hayes charged upfield for fully 20 metres, shipped to scrum-half Peter Stringer, then Clohessy took over and found Kevin Maggs and finally Murphy popped in to finish it, and Wales, off.There were further tries from Denis Hickie, Keith Gleeson and Ronan O’Gara to complete the rout. All Wales were left with was Stephen Jones solo contributions of a penalty and the conversion of his 63rd minute try.Ireland’s coach, Eddie O’Sullivan, was wary of expectations going through the roof.