Irish media predict horrific Six Nations for Wales as Pivac's team accused of being 'as dull as Gatland's'

The comedian Tim Vine tells a joke about how he was getting into a car when another bloke called over.

“‘Can you give me a lift?’” the man said.

“I said: ‘Sure, you look great, the world’s your oyster, go for it.’”

It’s doubtless the way he tells ’em.

Anyway, Wayne Pivac would take any positivity on offer right now, even if it meant he had to walk everywhere for the next month.

But optimism over Wales’ chances in the Six Nations isn’t coming from all quarters.

Every one of a five-strong panel of MailOnline experts brought together to preview the Six Nations tipped Pivac’s team for a fifth-place finish.

And now, from across the Irish Sea, The42 website has done little to elevate Pivac’s spirits.

In a piece headlined ‘Know Your Enemy: the lowdown on Ireland’s Six Nations opponents', the writer Garry Doyle doesn’t exactly advise Wales’ head coach to put the champagne on ice over the coming weeks and months.

In fact, he suggests an ‘horrific’ campaign can be predicted, one which Wales will head into with no hope.

“Here is a stat,” he writes. “In the final game of last season’s Six Nations championship, Wales had over 1,000 caps on the pitch but by the time they rock up in the Aviva Stadium next Saturday, 680 of those will be missing.

“In other words, no Alun Wyn Jones, Ken Owens, Justin Tipuric, Josh Navidi, Taulupe Faletau or George North really translates into no hope for the Welsh, especially when you add in the additional absentees, Leigh Halfpenny, Dan Lydiate, Jonny Williams (all injured), Cory Hill — now in Japan — and Jake Ball — now in Australia.

“Take seven British and Irish Lions out of the Ireland squad and you know it’ll hurt. In Wales – where the production line is not as slick – the pain is greater. A