Last season, Ireland were pipped to the post by France by they are now in the box seat level on six points with England but with a better points difference and with a winnable home tie against Scotland remaining.

And they killed off the Welsh title challenge inside the first quarter of the match. Taking a leaf out of their senior counterparts' book, Wales left themselves too much to do after a nightmare start after shipping 17 points inside 20 minutes despite a stirring fightback including a Dan Fish double.

Their misery began just 18 seconds into the game when Matthew Jarvis' attempted clearance was charged down by hooker Niall Annett who did superbly well to ground the bouncing ball.

James McKinney converted and soon stretched the home side's early advantage to 10-0 with a textbook penalty from 40m.

The Queen's University fly-half then showed another range of his skills with a brilliant offload to the charging second row David O'Callaghan who in turn fed No.8 Patrick Butler for a 15th minute score.

McKinney's conversion effectively took the game out of Wales' hands and to add insult to injury prop Simon Gardiner and lock Lloyd Peers were both hurt in the build up to the try and were withdrawn from the fray.

In fact it could have been worse for the visitors when one of the replacements James Thomas was sent to the sin-bin for a high tackle on Nevin Spence.

Despite their numerical advantage, Ireland could not convert the superiority of their ferocious pack into points and the halftime score remained 17-0.

But Wales did rally after the break and full-back Fish latched onto Kristian Phillips' pop pass for an excellent try converted by Dean Gunter.

Ireland's response was instant as replacement wing Eoin Griffin touched down McKinney's perfectly weighted chip to the corner. The fly-half converted the score he created to take the hosts two scores clear.

Wales though were not done yet and on 52 minutes Fish showed his raw pace by piercing a hole in the Irish defensive line for his side's second try.

The game's tempo calmed down with Ireland controlling proceedings so when winger James Loxton grabbed an injury-time score for the visitors it was too little too later.