The good news for Irish rugby supporters is that ticket prices have been reduced from 2011 and for the first time family packages have been introduced for the tournament. Family tickets start at just €45 while individual stand tickets start at €30 and tickets for the designated schoolboy/schoolgirl section start at €15. The category 1 adult tickets will cost €75 against Wales, €65 for Scotland and €55 for the game with Italy.

IRFU Commercial and Marketing Committee chairman Pat Fitzgerald said:

“We are pleased to be able to offer great value tickets for the RBS Six Nations in 2012. We have tickets available at different category levels that give all our supporters an opportunity to come to the Aviva Stadium and see Ireland play. Our ticketing strategy in August saw huge crowds coming to the Aviva Stadium and we feel that with the value on offer, there will be three full houses for the games against Wales, Scotland and Italy next year.”

The Six Nations games in 2012 and 2013 will be deemed to be one Six Nations ‘cycle’. There will be no linkage requiring branches to purchase tickets for the autumn International matches in November 2012 in order for branches to retain their Six Nations ticket allocations. However the lowest take up of a ticket allocation by any Branch for Wales, Italy or Scotland in 2012, will become the respective allocation for both England and France in 2013. All Branch allocations will be reviewed following the conclusion of the 2013 Six Nations.

Any tickets not sold through the clubs will be made available online through the Irish Rugby Supporters Club.

RBS 6 Nations 2012 Ticket Prices

1st New Zealand

2nd Australia

3rd South Africa

4th Ireland

The Ireland scrum took apart England and a back row of Sean O’Brien, David Wallace and Jamie Heaslip ripped into the breakdown, carrying with intensity that Englands youngsters could not match. Tommy Bowe, Keith Earl and Andrew Trimble looked dangerous every time the back three entered the attacking line.

Ireland took the lead early on as Sexton, back in over O’Gara at fly-half struck a penalty after the visitors were offside at the line-out. Doubling this lead when Chris Ashton was penalised for a high tackle on Sexton who duly converted for his second.

Turning over possession by preventing the England carriers getting to the ground and playing with pace and width were the order of the day.

What looked a great try was ruled forward with Tommy Bowe’s final pass to O’Driscoll, which would have taken O’Driscoll over the threshold and into the top try-scorer in the history of the Five and Six Nations. However Ireland had been awarded an advantage and promptly let Sexton take them 9 points ahead of a scoreless England in the first quarter.

England replaced an injured Tom Palmer with Simon Shaw but still didn’t seem to register in attack, they finally earned a kickable penalty only for Flood to kick it badly wide. This mistake was compounded as Ben Foden was forced into a desperate defensive kick and Heaslip carried back.

An entire England defence was off-side and Sexton tapped another penalty to commit the defence before sending Bowe over the line. Sexton missed the conversion but with half an hour gone England never looked like going near the grand slam!

Finally England registered on the board with a Flood penalty, only to see a bad half get worse with Ben Youngs sin-binned after conceding a silly penalty at a scrum, when David Wallace charged down the line Youngs edged him into touch and then threw the ball into the crowd. Ten minutes rest for him.

Sexton wasn’t about to miss again, and Ireland were 17-3 up at half time.

It took just seven minutes into the second half before O’Driscoll got his record breaking 25th-try after sweeping move saw him round Louis Deacon in the corner. Fields of Athenry were silenced just long enough for Sexton to drive over the conversion and make it 24-3

Replacement hooker Steve Thompson intercepted a Reddan pass and scampered over from 40m out, but Wilkinson could not convert. As the game continued England had increasing possession but could not score and their Grand Slam hopes slowly disappeared.

Jonathan Kaplan and touch judge Peter Allan failed to see a ballboy hand Matthew Rees a replacement ball which he used in quick lineout to Mike Philips who ran 45m to score.

Under the laws, a quick lineout is not allowed if anyone other than the player taking the throw, or an opponent who has been tackled into touch, has touched the ball. The same ball that was taken out of play has to be used, which did not happen in Cardiff.

Allan was asked by Kaplan whether the correct ball was used and he said yes, awarding Wales a try. In fact the correct ball had been handled by the crowd and the ballboy AND a replacement ball was used.

O’Brien’s apology on behalf of the entire officiating team has been accepted by Ireland.

The full page adverts are headed “robbed” and the bookmakers have promised a “justice refund” to every punter who bet on Ireland to win.

Setbacks started early for Ireland with Eoin Reddan replaced by Pete Stringer after taking a Lee Byrne clearance full in the face, Ireland though were quick to regroup. Less than two minutes had passed before Tommy Bowe drew a tackle and passed to allow O’Driscoll to dive over the line to the left of the posts and score his championship-record equalling 24th try.

O’Gara’s conversion also saw him join an exclusive club of players ( Jonny Wilkinson, Dan Carter, Neil Jenkins and Diego Dominguez) to score 1,000 points.

Wales weren’t to escape injury in a quick opening quarter, when prop Craig Mitchell dislocated his shoulder John Yapp made an early appearance. Wales continued to dominate as time went on, with only a Hook penalty to show for it. Hook cut the gap on 28 minutes through another penalty only for O’Gara to quickly reply to give Ireland a 10-6 advantage.

The game could have turned into disarray with such a high error count had it not been for Kaplan’s willingness to allow a contest at the breakdown to keep the tempo up. Leigh Halfpenny landed a superb long-range penalty to keep Wales in touch.

Sean O’Brien charged into the Wales 22 to generate the final scoring touch of the first half, Philips was punish for not releasing and O’Gara duly converted.

Ten minutes into the second half saw Sexton introduced, and he promptly screwed a kick straight into touch near halfway. Then came the moment that will be debated for many years to come, the try that should never have been…

Sexton’s kick landed in the crowd, ruling out a quick lineout. However a second ball was used by Rees to send Philips dashing down the touchline and past Bowe. Kaplan consulted the touch judge and quickly blew for a try, despite please for O’Driscoll and O’Connell to go to the video ref. Hook added the extra and the job was done.

Ireland seemed thrunderstruck, Fitzgerald had a try disallowed for a forward pass from O’Ccllaghan and Sexton missed a penalty he would normally hit.

Despite a last ditch effort from Cronin, Paddy Wallace and Healy it wasn’t to be, and Ireland were left reading the rule book cover to cover and dreaming of what might have been.

So they should! Having it shut hands an extra player to the team with the most supporters in the form of a noise barrier!

Wales don’t seem particularly happy with it, but that’s to be expected!

The decision follows heated exchanges between players and fans after the Scotland game.

Donncha O’Callaghan reveals:

“The silly ones will always annoy you and I think anyone who was in our meeting with Deccie in Carton House wouldn’t want to be on the end of a silly penalty this week,”

“Because, to be fair, you probably know him all as a nice man and really calm and composed, but he f*****g let fly on Tuesday and you just don’t want to be in there, following the review of that game, being on the end of something silly.”

The camp has made lots of noise about refereeing reviews and calls from the captain to drop re-offending players, but it seems Kidney is determined to draw a line under the issue.

Lets hope it improves against Wales to prevent further annoyance to the coach!

David Wallace receives his 70th cap, it will also be his 40th appearance in the Championship.

Kidney says:

“It will be one of those games that whoever takes their chances will come out on top.”

IRELAND Team & Replacements (v Wales, 2011 RBS 6 Nations Championship, Millennium Stadium, Saturday, March 12, kick-off 5pm):

15 - Luke Fitzgerald (Blackrock College/Leinster)
14 - Tommy Bowe (Ospreys)
13 - Brian O’Driscoll (UCD/Leinster) (capt)
12 - Gordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne/Leinster)
11 - Keith Earls (Thomond/Munster)
10 - Ronan O’Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster)
9 - Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster)
1 - Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)
2 - Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster)
3 - Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster)
4 - Donncha O’Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster)
5 - Paul O’Connell (Young Munster/Munster)
6 - Sean O’Brien (Clontarf/Leinster)
7 - David Wallace (Garryowen/Munster)
8 - Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster)

Replacements:

16 - Sean Cronin (Buccaneers/Connacht)
17 - Tom Court (Malone/Ulster)
18 - Leo Cullen (Blackrock College/Leinster)
19 - Denis Leamy (Cork Constitution/Munster)
20 - Peter Stringer (Shannon/Munster)
21 - Jonathan Sexton (St. Mary’s College/Leinster)
22 - Paddy Wallace (Ballymena/Ulster)