JAMIE HEASLIP STARTED as he means to go on as Ireland’s skipper yesterday.
The Leinster forward was given the role permanently by head coach Declan Kidney last month.
And Heaslip looked the part as he stepped into Brian O’Driscoll’s boots, to lead Ireland to a first 6 Nations win of the campaign.
“The tank is completely empty, completely zonked,” he told RTÉ the 22-30 win at the Millennium Stadium. “I will sleep soundly tonight.
“It was an heroic effort by the guys on the field and the guys who came on. It really was a game of two halves. Fair play to Wales they really came at us, they really asked some question of us. We were down to 14 men for the guts of 20 minutes which doesn’t make it easy playing against a side playing with such width. But we stuck to it and we managed to eke the win out.
“We said inside that we took her foot off the pedal a little bit in that second half. I don’t know if it was that or the fact that Wales played so well and really stretched us at times,” the Kildare man told Clare McNamara.
“We got sucked in with their shape at times. We missed a couple of tackles and on another day we wouldn’t have. These are things to work on and to come away with a win from the Millennium Stadium, I’m absolutely chuffed to bits.”
