Warren Gatland has claimed that egos and arrogance got in the way of World Cup success for Ireland this year.
Joe Schmidt's charges had a lack lustre tournament, that included humiliating defeats to Japan in the Pool stages and New Zealand in the quarter-finals.
And speaking on Off The Ball, Wales boss Gatland said: "Egos would get the better of Ireland, they’d try and play a different way and be more expansive and they sometimes did, but it was to their detriment.
"Look at England; John Mitchell came out and said before the first game of the Six Nations and said ‘We can’t let Ireland bore us to death’.
"I think Ireland tried a few things and realised ‘we know what works for us’, but the thing with Ireland, when we had our success against Ireland, we went in thinking discipline was really important, stopping that go-forward from No 9, and then if you did that what do they have to go to?"
He also questioned the selection policy, imploring that there should have been some younger players blooded in.
"I’m not on the inside," he added. "But looking from the outside in and the only question I would ask is had two or three of those players, who had been brilliant over the years, gone a little bit past it?
"Was there one or two younger players who, if they’d been given the opportunity, could have been stars?"
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