Sexton: 'We've come a long way in the last three years'

Johnny Sexton believes the nature of Ireland's 34-10 win against Wales shows how far they've developed in recent seasons under Andy Farrell.

The Six Nations favourites enjoyed a near-perfect start in picking up a bonus-point win away to Wales, their first championship win in the Principality Stadium since 2013.

The groundwork was laid in a dominant first half in which they raced out to a 27-3 lead, and while Wales showed admirable fight in the second half, they never looked like making a comeback, with Josh van der Flier's try 10 minutes from time putting the finishing touches on the performance.

"It was everything we spoke about during the week in terms of our accuracy, in terms of our discipline when they had the ball we were really good," the Ireland captain said of their first 40 minutes.

Having conceded just one penalty in the opening 30 minutes of the game, Ireland found themselves on the wrong side of referee Karl Dickson during the third quarter of the game, consistently putting themselves on the backfoot with penalties, conceding 13 in total during the game.

And while Sexton says they brought the pressure on themselves, he says the way in which they weathered the storm to go on and complete the win shows how they've matured.

"You got a reaction [from Wales] at half-time, but we didn't help ourselves. We gave away five penalties on the bounce when there was no need. All of them, it wasn't an unlucky penalty, they were clear penalties, and it's not good enough. That gave them access, and suddenly you go from a pretty comfortable lead to thinking 'if they score again we're in trouble', and the stadium would have gone mental.

"We held out, and all the messages were: 'we just need to win the next moment'. That's where we've