Welsh youth can trump Irish at W.Cup: assist. coach

Wales will take the fearlessnes of youth into their World Cup quarter-final against an experienced Ireland team in Wellington on Saturday, assistant coach Robin McBryde said. McBryde on Friday said Wales had gained momentum progressing through a tough pool that included champions South Africa, Samoa and Fiji, playing some dazzling rugby along the way, so would not be overawed facing Ireland's veterans. "Experience can be an advantage in some cases but it can also be a disadvantage when you've got the same old faces trying the same old things searching for the answers," he said. "The youth that we've got in our team is setting the standards, they've got no limits on their potential and that's showing in the way they play their rugby," McBryde added of a Wales team where captain Sam Warburton has only recently celebrated his 23rd birthday. "They genuinely play to what they see in front of them, if they see a gap they're going to go for it. It's very positive as a coach to see that." McBryde said if weather conditions were fine in Wellington, the match could well be the pick of the weekend's quarter-finals in terms of entertaining rugby. "If we've got anything to do with it, it will be," he said. "It'll be interesting to see if Ireland enter into the spirit of things," the former Wales hooker added. "They've got world-class Ronan O'Gara at 10, he tends to orchestrate quite a bit with his boot to buy them a lot of territory and put us under a lot of presure at set-piece time. "So it all depends how the game goes. If they're behind early on and they have to chase the game, perhaps they'll be forced to change their tactics. We'll have to wait and see." McBryde said the youthful Welsh team had "learned quite a lot about ourselves in the last month, most of it positive". "We've had two big wins against Namibia and Fiji, and no disrespect to those teams, at half-time we could have taken our foot off the gas, but we finished the job off in a very professional manner," he said. "When you couple that with the arm wrestles that we were in with South Africa and Samoa -- we came out on top of one of them and should have come out on top of the other (Wales lost to the Springboks by a point) -- we're in a good place and we can take a lot of confidence with that." McBryde said the Welsh pack had performed well at the tournament and would be keen to test themselves against their much-vaunted Irish rivals. "Ireland will be keen to press home their advantage, they feel that is one of their strengths. "We can only concentrate on what we can take control of. (The Welsh pack) have got a bit of a reputation of their own to uphold."