Simon Easterby: We dug ourselves out of a hole

Simon Easterby cut a relieved figure in the aftermath of Ireland's victory in Wales but said he was proud of his players after getting out of a "bit of a hole".

The defending Guinness Six Nations champions found themselves 18-10 down and a man down for 20 minutes as Wales threatened to pull off a massive shock at the Principality Stadium.

But the rejuvenated hosts didn’t score after Ireland were back to full complement with Bundee Aki coming on in the 55th minute for Garry Ringrose, who had a yellow card upgraded to red after a bunker review.

Ireland picked up the Triple Crown and remain on course for a Grand Slam with games against France and Italy to come.

"Pleased with the result but lots of things in the game that we feel we could have done better," was Easterby’s initial assessment of the 27-18 win.

"We go down in the game, we go down a man and then we go down on the scoreboard.

"We came in at half-time and felt like if we played in the right way and did things better our way then we felt we could dominate them.

"We had a lot of possession and territory for 30 minutes, just didn't quite get our accuracy right in terms of scoring the points that we needed.

"We knew that Wales would come back into it if we gave them an opportunity and we did that.

"I was pleased that we responded to being in a bit of a hole and we dug ourselves out and took the game away from them in the last 20."

Ringrose was sent off for a high challenge on Ben Thomas in the 35th minute. Wales went on to score 12 points when Ireland had 14 players on the field.

"Those can go either way, Ringer's a great player for us, everything he does is with intent, in terms of the speed he works at," said Easterby.

"That's probably what cost him there, the speed of