Six Nations: Henry stays positive ahead of Ireland match

Wales coach Graham Henry is adamant his side will go into their Six Nations clash with unbeaten Ireland in good heart despite blowing a 19-point lead at Murrayfield.

Wales coach Graham Henry is adamant his side will go into their Six Nations clash with unbeaten Ireland in good heart - despite blowing a 19-point lead at Murrayfield.

Henry’s men looked all set to bounce back from their mauling at the hands of England by cruising to victory against error-prone Scotland on Saturday.

Mark Taylor’s interception try and 23 points from Neil Jenkins put Wales in the driving seat before Ian McGeechan’s brave hearts stormed back to grab a 28-28 draw.

But Henry insists the first hour of the pulsating match provided the foundation on which to build for the showdown with championship-chasing Ireland.

He said: "Obviously I am disappointed with the draw after being so far ahead. We stopped playing with 20 minutes to go we should have been more patient than that.

"But there’s no point in being negative we’ve had enough practice at doing that. We need to be positive about what happened. We need to build on that in the next game.

"We should have closed the door when we were 25-6 up, but this is a learning experience for us."

The Lions coach is encouraged his side are on an upward curve and believes they learned much from the 44-15 thrashing by England at the Millennium Stadium.

He added: "We were pleased with our first half and we showed we had learnt from the England game.

"On that day we had an excellent first 10 minutes but didn’t get any points.

"When we got down in Scotland territory we came back with some reward.

"Overall, our defence held up pretty well. But we still made mistakes, which is something we shall have to work on."

Henry is also aware of the conditioning his players need - both of body and mind - and he said: "What we need to do is look at our mental and physical fitness and address what went wrong.

"The statistics will also show we lost a few line-outs on our throw."

Henry was careful not to step on McGeechan’s toes on the issue of Kenny Logan’s goal-kicking.

The Wasps winger missed three penalties and a conversion all of which were straightforward before being replaced by Duncan Hodge for the final match-saving conversion.

He said: "I have enough problems of my own without worrying about Ian McGeechan. I’m sure he thought he had made the right decision but I won’t put my nose into that situation."

Wales team manager David Pickering was also delighted with his side’s resilience after the heavy defeat in their Six Nations opener.

He said: "I’m proud of the way we turned it round after the game against England.

"We put in a much more competitive performance. It is definitely an improvement as far as we are concerned."

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