Nathan Johns

We'll be back in your feed on Saturday with a weekend roundup of the two finals.

to the counter-rock rugby podcast brought to you by the irish times in partnership with oak energy women's six nations was back this weekend ireland ultimately beating wales comfortably 33 points to 12 ifa wafer with two tries and a sensational offload to set up another for babian parsons as a stubborn let's call it welsh outfit was eventually put away bit of it

feisty encounter at times.

Clean and Maloney McDonald saw yellow for kicking out while being held off the ball but ultimately Ireland prevailed.

They are on course for three home wins which would once again see them finish third in the table behind France and England.

They host Scotland at the Aviva next weekend, first time since 2014.

They would have played at Lansdowne Road and the word is ticket sales are pretty good so they're looking on course for a record crowd there.

Elsewhere in the URC, wins for Leinster against the Lions, Ulster drawing 38-all with the Stormers up in Belfast and a sensational result for Connacht, albeit it puts Munster under slightly more pressure.

more pressure than they perhaps would have liked at this stage.

Bonus point victory for the Westerners in Galway.

So that leaves Connacht in ninth, one spot off the top eight.

Ulster are ahead of them on 50 points level with Cardiff.

Munster are one further up out of 51.

Leinster are the only Irish province that are virtually assured of top eight standings.

It's a victory against the Ospreys this weekend, while hoping that Ulster do them a favour against Glasgow, which would mean Leinster move into the top two and avoid a potentially dodgy South African trip in a URC semi-final.

Ulster probably need to beat Glasgow to stay in that top eight, albeit we'll see how results go.

Connacht will need a victory away to Edinburgh.

As we said, they're one point outside the top eight.

Munster...

Well, we'll see.