STEPHEN Jones and Simon Easterby will be knocking lumps out of one another when Wales go for the Grand Slam and Ireland for the Triple Crown on Saturday - but in the summer Jones will be best man at Easterby's wedding.

The former Llanelli teammates (Jones is now with Clermont Auvergne) will be directly opposed in the Millennium Stadium showdown, but the rivals who are mates will be talking about Easterby's nuptials soon after.

"I got a text message off him after the game in Scotland reminding me I'm best man at his wedding," laughed Jones. "But he'll be in my face all game on Saturday.

"He's a great guy, but you get engrossed in the game really and you forget about who you're playing against."

And Jones gets so involved that he had no idea Wales had won just once at Murrayfield in 20 years before Sunday's triumph, and he hadn't got a clue Wales haven't beaten Ireland in Cardiff since 1983.

"Is that right?" he asked. "That's amazing, I was only five at the time.

"I'm not big on records, I hadn't realised until last week that only Gareth Llewellyn of our squad had won at Murrayfield.

"But there's such a feelgood factor out there that now it makes all the difficult times and all the hard work we've put in seem worthwhile.

"It feels very special, I'm a very happy man to go from two years ago (when Wales were whitewashed) to this.

"Ireland are a very good side, you only have to look at past results. We respect them, but we've just got to go out there and play our game.

"Ireland beat England and they came back at France so we know it's going to be a huge challenge.

"We've just got to go out there and play rugby, though there will obviously be patches when we'll be under the cosh.

"We'll keep to most of what we've been doing, we've worked so hard and we've got to keep on improving."