Aaron Wainwright will carry Welsh comeback hopes into the Aviva on Friday week

The last time Wales beat Ireland in Dublin, Leigh Halfpenny kicked three penalties and converted a Justin Tipuric try. That was almost 11 years ago, in a warm-up game before the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England.

Three years before that, in 2012, Wales beat Ireland in the Six Nations in Dublin and they haven’t done it since.

Coached by Warren Gatland and captained by Sam Warburton, Wales won 23-21 and went on to win that year’s championship, achieving their third Grand Slam in eight tournaments.

It has been a dramatic fall over the last decade, with last weekend’s defeat to Scotland the 24th loss by Wales from 26 Tests and their 14th successive defeat in the Six Nations.

While it is easy to use those damning numbers to paint Wales as a basket case, there were some shards of light last week in Cardiff. Scotland eked out the 26-23 win, but in the misery of another beating there was some promise. Probably not enough promise for Wales to come to the Aviva on Friday week as anything other than rank outsiders. But what made Scotland’s win so harrowing for Welsh fans is that they lost the match from a 20-5 advantage.

Had they held out, it would have ended a three-year stretch of being the Six Nations’ whipping boys.

The timeline for the game against Scotland shows that George Turner’s try and Finn Russell’s conversion came in the 75th minute. It was the first time that Scotland led in the game.

What hurt Scotland was Wales’s power game, with frontrow and captain Dewi Lake leading by example. But for consistency and leadership in the backrow, Aaron Wainwright, the 28-year-old Dragons player, was again at the forefront of Wales’s close-but-no-cigar performance.

[ Scotland keep Triple Crown hopes alive with dramatic victory over WalesOpens in new window ]

Comfortable across the backrow, Wainwright has been one of Wales’s go-to players with the ball and carried 22 times against Scotland from number eight. He has made 48 carries over the three games so far, bettered only by England’s Ben Earl.

It’s highly likely that Wainwright, bound for Leicester Tigers next season, will play opposite Irish captain Caelan Doris.

Doris will know about Wainwright’s ability to cross the gainline and even as the Welsh pack were beaten off the pitch against France and England he was consistently driving forward.

Against Scotland he did it again, with his work rate without the ball another factor in his impact on the game.

Leicester head coach Geoff Parling called the 28-year-old “an outstanding backrower that has shown that he can consistently perform for both club and country”.

That consistency earned him his contract with the Tigers, the announcement coming last month. It ends a streak of loyalty to Dragons which stretched back to 2017, when former Irish hooker Bernard Jackman was in charge.

His Welsh place is safe, though, as with more than 60 caps he easily exceeds the 25-cap threshold that players outside of Wales must meet to remain eligible to play for their country.

Wainwright is central to the Welsh team’s reset, with necessities such as courage, energy, motivation, accuracy and attitude on the pitch remaining eye-catching. And for those qualities he has been many people’s Wales player so far in the championship.

The game against Scotland showed glimpses of those and Wales will arrive in Dublin with less fear than two years ago, when Ireland won 31-7.

“You saw in the autumn what we could do when we were on the money,” Wainwright told the BBC before the Six Nations began.

“We spoke about belief. There’s belief within the group and that’s what we are going to be thriving on. We are going to go out there and believe that we can put a performance in that’s going to be one to win the game.

“If we can do that and give something for the fans to get behind then that’s great. Can we put a performance in that’s going to make the fans proud? That’s what our focus has been ... showing our identity when we get out there.”

As a teenager he was talented enough at football to attract the attention of Cardiff City and Newport County and to get into the Wales under-16 squad. The fairytale was of a career in professional football not rugby.

But rugby took over and, having played the game for just three years, in 2018 Wainwright earned a ticket to the USA with Gatland’s Wales squad as a 20-year-old.

It’s a choice that has handsomely paid off and Wales will look to him again in Dublin against a resurgent Irish team. This season he has answered each time.

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