It's going to be so much more than a game in Dublin a week on Saturday when Wales go for the Triple Crown against an Irish team hell bent on stopping them.

There is no love lost between the sides for starters and rivalry between the Celtic cousins often boils over in key Magners League games.

The Irish are a battle-hardened bunch who have been to the trenches many, many times and come out the right side.

They've got a vast amount of experience and the Munster contingent are used to winning intense Heineken Cup ties and have even won the coveted trophy itself.

After a period when the away team frequently won, the Irish have tightened up and Dublin has become something of a graveyard for Wales in recent years.

Take the corresponding game in 2002, which turned out to be Graham Henry's last after Wales crashed to a record 54-10 defeat. Two days later the New Zealander resigned, a previous record equalling run of ten successive wins forgotten amid the debris of Dublin.

It appeared that Ireland were on the wane after a disappointing World Cup campaign, as they, like Wales, failed to qualify for the quarter-finals though they were in a tougher group.

Then came a low key opening Six Nations game against Italy, Ireland winning by a mere five points followed by defeat in France, though the first green shoots of recovery were evident in a stirring second half comeback.

That flowered a bit more against Scotland on Saturday when the Irish scored five tries which was two more than Wales managed against them.

The pressure which had been piling up on coach Eddie O'Sullivan with accusations that he was a busted flush and that Ireland were playing dull, unimaginative rugby now seems buried.

So it's going to be an all-out physical battle in 11 days time as a Welsh pack now giving it the full blast will be intent on establishing forward dominance before letting some gifted backs off the leash.

The Irish rarely give anything away up front, they've got some gnarled forwards who have been to the well more than once, they look like being strengthened by the return of line-out ace Paul O'Connell and they won't want to take a backward step.

But Wales are on a high, three wins out of three, sitting proudly on top of the Six Nations table and the only team who can win the Grand Slam. They have truly risen from the ashes of the World Cup.

A great deal of the credit must obviously go to new coach Warren Gatland and big mate Shaun Edwards who have turned Wales from the fumbling, hamfisted side of the World Cup to an outfit bursting for honours.

The scale of the transformation has surprised even Gatland. But now comes the real acid test, with due respect to England, for Ireland in Dublin will be a different kettle of fish.

More of that in the big build-up next week, but even now more off-the-field fun and games are starting to kick in, like the rivalry between coaches Gatland and Eddie O'Sullivan, who replaced him as Irish coach in 2001 even though Ireland had just beaten England and led New Zealand 21-7 at half-time.

Accusations of back-stabbing were rife at the time, and Gatland hasn't forgotten it. He attempted to diffuse prospects of the row re-surfacing by paying O'Sullivan a series of compliments on Sunday, but don't you believe it, the rivalry is still there.

It still rankles, Gatland really wants to win this one and victory over his old adversary would probably give him more satisfaction than even the Twickenham triumph.

Then there is the Croke Park factor, a previously sacrosanct Gaelic Games stadium given over with great reluctance by some to the Irish rugby team while the creaking, quaint old Lansdowne Road ground is being redeveloped.

It will be Wales' first experience playing at this stronghold - it has the biggest capacity of any ground in the Six Nations at 82,300 which is 300 more than Twickenham and 2,300 higher than the Stade de France capacity so the atmosphere will be red hot and razor sharp.

And then there are the Welsh fans. Ah, the Welsh fans.

Tens of thousands will cross the Irish Sea by whatever means they can, most of them without a ticket but determined to be there to soak up the atmosphere.

In that 2002 game under Henry a phenomenal 28,000 swarmed on Dublin and fewer than 5,000 actually had a ticket.

That's Welsh rugby for you, and something similar can be expected next week for this match which has so many sides to it.

A game of rugby? A bloody war more like.

Ask the 1978 side which descended on Dublin going for a triple Triple Crown and though they emerged triumphant Bobby Windsor never forgets how nobody moved in the dressing room afterwards, they were all so knackered.

He often recalls how the Irish kicked them from one end of Lansdowne Road to the other, with Fergus Slattery in all his pomp' but though black and blue somehow they did it courtesy of a late J J Williams try.

Rhoose Airport had never seen anything like it on the team's return to Wales as more fans packed in to welcome their heroes home. Will we see a repeat next week?