Brave Welsh hold off Ireland

Cardiff -Wales derailed Ireland's hopes of the Triple Crown with a hard-fought 19-13 Six Nations victory over the visitors at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday.

A controversial Mike Phillips try, 11 points from the boot of James Hook and a long-range penalty from Leigh Halfpenny proved too much for Ireland, for whom Brian O'Driscoll scored a five-pointer and Ronan O'Gara bagged two penalties and a conversion.

The victory means Wales, who have beaten Scotland (24-6) and Italy (24-16) but lost to England (26-19), remain in contention for winning the Six Nations.

It was only the second defeat in Cardiff since 1983 for Ireland, who this season have beaten Italy (13-11) and Scotland (21-18), but went down 25-22 to France.

The performance of both sides will hardly have impressed their World Cup rivals, however, a catalogue of handling errors, turnovers and inaccurate aerial ping-pong littering a disappointing spectacle in which a lot of bluster added up to not very much.

But it was a victory that man of the match Hook gladly took as they made it three successive wins after an opening defeat to the English.

"It's superb to be honest. We fully deserved the win, though, to be honest anyone could have won the match," said Hook.

"But we have trained really hard and put that effort into the games and now here we are with three wins. It's great."

O'Driscoll got things rolling in the third minute, the lucky recipient of a Tommy Bowe offload after the wing had expertly drawn Alun Wyn Jones and Jamie Roberts had fallen off the Irish captain.

The Leinster centre's touchdown drew him level with Iain Smith as the highest try scorer in Five and Six Nations history, both having scored 24.

Another landmark was reached when O'Gara kicked the conversion to hit the 1 000-point mark in Test rugby.

Wales had a chance to get on the scoreboard in the 17th minute, but Hook's penalty came back off the post.

He made no such mistake two minutes later, however, after hooker Rory Best infringed at a ruck.

Wales dominated possession and territory in the first quarter but it was not until the 28th minute that Hook notched up his second penalty, the Irish defence resolute.

O'Gara extended the visitors' lead with a penalty, a deficit hauled back when Halfpenny was successful with a 48-metre effort.

The Ireland outside-half was then on hand to move his team into a 13-9 lead at half-time with a second penalty after Phillips failed to roll away from a ruck in front of his own posts.

The scrumhalf redeemed himself when he caught Ireland napping early in the second period, taking a quick throw-in from captain Matthew Rees and racing in to score in the corner.

Hook kicked the extras amid protests from the Irish that the try should not have stood because the same ball had not been used for the quick throw-in - however referee Jonathan Kaplan consulted the linesman as he was not allowed to use video evidence and gave the try.

Jonny Sexton, on for O'Gara, squandered an easy kick at goal and the game degenerated into an out-of-hand kicking battle that was far from the free-flowing spectacle both coaches had predicted the game would be.

Perpignan-bound Hook kicked his third penalty with 11 minutes to play and the home side held firm in a frantic climax in which replacement fullback Paddy Wallace shunned an overlap to cut back inside with the line abegging.

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (RSA)

Attendance: 74 233