DUBLIN, March 6 (Reuters) - Ireland coach Andy Farrell and his players were full of praise for Wales on Friday after the Six Nations strugglers pushed their opponents mightily hard for the second successive week, progress the Welsh captain described as "monumental".
The 2021 champions, who have not won a Six Nations game in three years and conceded 102 points in the first two rounds of this campaign, followed up their agonising loss to Scotland two weeks ago by pushing Ireland all the way in Friday's 27-17 loss.
While Farrell bemoaned his inconsistent side's lack of game management and propensity to overplay, particularly in failing to add on to an early lead, he credited the bottom-placed Wales with making their life incredibly hard.
"The frustrations were that you don't get it all your own way in test matches, and nor should you and that's all credit to Wales and the way they went about their business. I thought they were outstanding," Farrell said.
"They were outstanding in defence, hit unbelievably hard and have improved constantly throughout the competition."
Player of the match Jack Conan joined Farrell in calling the Welsh performance "brilliant", although captain Caelan Doris was a little more circumspect, saying Ireland lacked the clinical edge and ruthlessness of the near perfect display against England last time out.
Wales host Italy next with a realistic chance of avoiding a third straight winless wooden spoon and leaving their tournament losing streak behind them at 15 games. Captain Dewi Lake believes his side are now "massively" improving week-on-week.
"We spoke about the Scotland game being our baseline. We've proved to ourselves and we've proved to everyone else that we can do it and where we can be at so we can't drop below that now," the Welsh hooker said.
"There are so many positives to take from that game (today). From where we were in round one to where we are now, there's a stark difference. I think we've really given ourselves a platform to build on and we're only going to get better."
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
