ADAM Jones believes it is time Wales "grew up a bit" after their naivety was exposed by Triple Crown-chasing Ireland at Croke Park.

Wales's 27-12 defeat left an RBS Six Nations campaign that promised so much in disarray and renders next weekend's home match against fellow wooden spoon contenders Italy a relative non-event.

It was the heaviest Six Nations reversal of Wales coach Warren Gatland's reign, and biggest championship loss since another Dublin debacle four years ago when Ireland blitzed them 31-5.

The match statistics showed Wales dominated territory and possession. They also completed 79 more passes and had to make 58 fewer tackles.

Wales, though, would not have scored a try if they had played until St Patrick's Day — 2011, that is, not next Wednesday's annual celebration.

One line-break in the whole game confirmed a chronic paucity of attacking ideas and execution, which contributed towards Ireland winning comfortably despite never moving out of second gear.

Ireland scored two tries in Lee Byrne's absence, and it did not get much better when he went back on, the Osprey player conceding a penalty that Jonathan Sexton goaled after he threw the ball away.

"Our discipline is not good, and perhaps it is time we became more mature and grew up a bit," said prop Jones.

"It was disappointing. We shipped 10 points during the yellow card, the line-out went to pot in the first half and Ireland were very good at the breakdown.

"That series of scrums early in the second half was the turning point of the game. We had a lot of pressure, but we let them off the hook and they scored soon after they cleared their lines.

"If we could have scored a try or a penalty try at that point, we would have been back in the game.

"But we failed to concentrate on that last scrum, and for whatever reason the ball went loose and they had a big scrum."

Lapses

Ireland also punished Welsh defensive lapses — they have shipped 14 tries during their last five Tests — and Jones added: "I am not sure what is going wrong in the defence.

"It is not the standard that we require, and it is very disappointing. It is not through want of trying — nobody goes out there on purpose to miss tackles.

"We have the systems in place, but they are not working because of missed tackles. We are missing one-on-one tackles at the moment.

"We had a lot of possession and territory, and that is what makes it all the more frustrating."