Eddie James says Wales will take a front-foot approach against Ireland, despite being Guinness Six Nations underdogs.<\/p>\n
Wales’ chances of upsetting Ireland in Dublin on Friday night and ending a run of 14 straight Six Nations defeats look incredibly slim.<\/p>\n
Steve Tandy’s side are bottom of the table after three rounds of matches, while Ireland revived title hopes after racking up their highest-ever points tally at Allianz Stadium with a stunning 42-21 victory over England.<\/p>\n
“We don\u2019t go into any game thinking we can\u2019t win,” said Scarlets centre James.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s not the mindset to have in any professional sport. We\u2019re definitely going there to put our best foot forward and have a go at them.<\/p>\n
“Ireland are a top side, they\u2019ve got threats everywhere and are a well-drilled team.<\/p>\n
“But for us it\u2019s building from our performance against Scotland and trying to implement that into Ireland.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s going to be a big ask, but one we\u2019re looking forward to.”<\/p>\n
There were some positive signs for Wales against Scotland two weeks ago after crushing opening defeats to England and France.<\/p>\n
Wales scored a couple of well-worked tries and led until five minutes from the end.<\/p>\n
James said: “We played with a bit more intent. Not scared to make mistakes, attacking more with and without the ball.<\/p>\n
“It was a big boost and the confidence has gone up 100%.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s about doing that away from home now. We\u2019ve shown we can do it in front of 70,000 at home, it\u2019s about taking it on the road now to Ireland.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s obviously a big difference, so we\u2019ve got to bounce off each other, give each other energy, and be there mentally.”<\/p>\n
James played his formative rugby at inside-centre before making the number 13 jersey for club and country his own this season.<\/p>\n
It has allowed the 23-year-old from Carmarthen, who is 6ft 4in tall and weighs 17st 5lbs, to strike up a growing partnership with club colleague Joe Hawkins.<\/p>\n
“I enjoy playing with Joe and we\u2019ve got a good relationship off the pitch as well,” said James.<\/p>\n
“The more games you play in any centre partnership you get a feel of what each other do.<\/p>\n
“Joe reads the game well, he can carry the ball and he\u2019s also a ball player.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s good for me because I like carrying hard. He\u2019s a smart player.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie James says Wales will take a front-foot approach against Ireland, despite being Guinness Six Nations underdogs. Wales’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-327920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}