How the Wales players rated in today's humiliating 26-3 defeat to Ireland (From Free Press Series)

How the Wales players rated in today's humiliating 26-3 defeat to Ireland

6:47pm Saturday 8th February 2014 in Sport By Iwan Gabe Davies

LEIGH HALFPENNY: The full-back started well and was immense under the high ball before he started to make mistakes from Ireland’s aerial bombardment which even got through to him on his 50th cap. 5

ALEX CUTHBERT: Had little impact on the game, starved of possession and his contribution was largely confined to try keeping out rampaging Irishmen. 5

SCOTT WILLIAMS: Showed some nice touches early on. Came off after just 17 minutes when he came off second best to a big hit on opposite number Brian O’Driscoll. 6

JAMIE ROBERTS: Not one his best performances for Wales, he was one dimensional and coughed the ball up durign one of Wales’ few promising moves. 4

GEORGE NORTH: His move into the centre didn’t work. James Hook should have gone there when Scott Williams was injured. North needs to work on his ball skills and stop looking for contact. 4

MIKE PHILLIPS: Plenty of spirit and determination from a man who loves taking on the Irish. All his hard work was in vain. Needlessly got himself yellow carded at the end. 6

GETHIN JENKINS: His work in the scrum was okay but not a vintage performance from the man inching ever closer to becoming Wales’ most capped player. 5

RICHARD HIBBARD: Had a bit of a shocker. His lineout errors proved immensely costly, gifting possession back to the Irishmen when Wales had scant promising territorial positions. 4

ADAM JONES: The scrum creaked when he went off but Wales’ play in the loose vastly improved when Rhodri Williams replaced him. 5

ANDREW COOMBS: The Newport Gwent Dragons man doesn’t have much luck against the Irish, he made his debut in the 30-22 defeat last year. Tried hard but was outplayed. 5

ALUN WYN JONES: Toiled admirably but it didn’t make much difference to the end result. Can hold his head up high though. 6

DAN LYDIATE: Made an outstanding contribution with his tackling in the first half but faded noticeably as the game went on. 5

SAM WARBURTON: He is clearly not the player he was and was guilty of a handling error at a crucial part of the game when Wales might have turned things around. He almost always gets outplayed by his opposite number these days. 5

TAULUPE FALETAU: Put in some barnstorming runs but guilty once of needlessly passing the ball with the inevitable turnover being committed. Generally decent though. 6

WALES’ MAN OF THE MATCH – RHYS PRIESTLAND: Ironically one of his best games in a world shirt came in a heavy defeat. Kicked well at times, tried to get his backs moving with a scarcity of decent possession and defended well. 6