One thing Neil Jenkins, the Wales kicking coach, does not want to hear in the build-up to this week's game against Ireland is mention of his side's perfect kicking record. In Wales's victories over England, Scotland and Italy in this year's RBS Six Nations Championship James Hook and Stephen Jones took 21 penalties and conversions between them and every one was successful.

It is not that Jenkins is not proud of this statistic, because he is. Rather it is that he is superstitious. “I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up,” he said yesterday afternoon, a rueful smile on his mud-spattered face. “Once people bring that sort of thing up, you miss.”

Jenkins, himself the world record points holder in international rugby, must be feeling that his job is secure, even if the men in his charge are so good that they bring out the natural Celtic gloom in him.

“The past 18 months, our goalkicking record has been good bar two matches,” Jenkins said. “We only kicked eight out of 12 against Japan [in the World Cup] and against Fiji [in the match to decide which team went through to the quarter-final]] we were all over the place. James missed a sitter. Stephen missed one. Maybe we had taken our eyes off the goalkicking, not concentrated enough.”

He continued in a similar vein of cautionary pessimism when he looked ahead to the task that confronts his charges in Dublin. “We've got our work cut out at Croke Park on Saturday,” Jenkins said. “Obviously none of us has ever played there before. Ronan O'Gara is a very good kicker and we have to be on our toes not to give him any room.

“Croke Park is a difficult place to kick. It is a much bigger stadium than we are used to and the pitch is wider and there is more room between the edge of the pitch and the seats.

“But I understand that of the 16 kicks taken at Croke Park in this year's championship, 13 have been successful. We have a session there on Friday so I hope we'll have the same sort of weather then as on Saturday. But with our luck it'll be still on Friday and windy on Saturday.”

Jenkins's face was flecked with mud, his hands were dirty and there was mud on his tracksuit because he had just come in from several kicking sessions with Wales players. He had had individual workouts with Mark Jones, the wing, and Tom Shanklin, the outside centre, yesterday morning, 25 minutes with each of them, and similar length sessions with Stephen Jones and Lee Byrne in the afternoon.

Girvan Dempsey took a limited part in Ireland's training yesterday and his hip injury will be monitored over the next 24 hours. Geordan Murphy, who did not train, underwent treatment and a rehabilitation session on his Achilles tendon injury. At this point both players remain in contention to play against Wales.