RBS SIX NATIONS: Ireland v Wales
Venue: Croke Park, Dublin Date: Saturday, 13 March Kick-off: 1430 GMT
Coverage: Watch on BBC One, BBC HD channel, Red Button and BBC Sport website; Radio 5 live, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru; text commentary on BBC Sport website and mobiles

Scrum-half Richie Rees will win his fourth Wales cap in Dublin

Richie Rees is eager to repay the vote of confidence given to him by Wales for Saturday's RBS Six Nations match against Ireland at Dublin's Croke Park.

The Cardiff Blue has kept the starting scrum-half spot and will win his fourth cap, holding off the claims of more experienced players.

Blues team-mate Gareth Cooper, Dwayne Peel and Mike Phillips, who has a dead leg, are the other nines in the squad.

"It's nice to keep the number nine jersey," Rees said.

"Obviously it's a big pat on the back for myself but Mike's been out injured for a while and... he's struggling with a dead leg now.

"But with the likes of Mike, Dwayne and Coops who've got the caps and experience it's nice to keep the spot."

Although Rees does not have the international experience of his Wales team-mates, he is confident that will not be a drawback on Saturday as the Ireland players are so well known to him.

Rees has played against most of the Ireland XV in the Magners League, while in opposite number Tomas O'Leary he has an opponent he has been playing against since age-grade rugby.

"I would have played against a lot of them in the Magners League, especially the nine I'm up against," Rees said.

"We happened to be Under-21s opponents together five years ago and we've played against each other a lot since, obviously he's a good player so I'm just looking forward to the battle.

"You try and get the better of your opponent whoever it is, but I've played against Tomas quite a few times so I've pin-pointed areas of the game that maybe I want to look at and we'll see how it goes.

"They've got some fantastic players in that side but we've done quite a bit of analysis on them this week.

"We've looked at the French game especially and we've picked out areas we think we can exploit."

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