WALES can lay their marker down today not just for the immediate future but right up to the next World Cup in 2007 and beyond.

In a way they already have with the manner they have played and the style they have shown, very much a flashback to the 70s when Wales played with such freedom and such self expression.

Then there were some dazzling individuals like Gerald Davies, JPR Williams, Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Phil Bennett allied to a powerful, much underrated pack with workhorses like the Pontypool front row of Charlie Faulkner, Bobby Windsor and Graham Price, along with teammates Terry Cobner and Jeff Squire.

Wales played some wonderful stuff and they won an amazing five Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams in that decade alone.

So it was no flash in the pan, it was spread over a decade and it truly was a golden era.

That is the challenge for this team and this group of players, to make sure this season is not a one off, but lasts and lasts, that it is merely the forerunner of greater things to come, that the glory is spread over years, a decade or more even.

Wales are undoubtedly the glory boys of this championship whatever the outcome of today's Grand Slam crunch against Ireland, for they have played some invigorating rugby, comfortably the best and most attractive of any of the teams.

It is as if the shackles of almost three decades of misery and mostly lack of success has been cast to the winds in one fell swoop, and replaced with a kind of free spirit which is basically Welsh rugby's heritage.

They have done it the Welsh way, by attacking from anywhere and running from everywhere. And vivid memories of the past have been restored with the way Wales have played.

Just as some of the greats of the 70s are still remembered today, so players like Shane Williams will make their own bit of history as truly magical, mesmerising runners.

The challenge will be to make the great days last, just as their predecessors did, to put their imprint on the Six Nations for years to come.

It's not going to be easy, in fact it will be a lot harder than the 70s for various reasons. Not least it's now six nations competing for the ultimate, not five, and England have long since joined the party big time. For in the 70s it was more of a social game for England as they proved little more than cannon fodder for Wales who destroyed them almost as a matter of course - and how the fans loved it, the annual slaughter of the English.

But once they started to take rugby really seriously, things were always going to change by virtue of sheer size and numbers. With professionalism so their advance continued on and off the field, to such a degree that the crowning glory came with their World Cup triumph in Australia the year before last.

It was difficult for Wales to compete in terms of size and numbers and they were in danger of being swamped. Indeed, their lowest point arrived when they were whitewashed only two years ago.

Yet out of the ashes the phoenix has risen, and the great days are here again with Wales on the brink of their first Grand Slam triumph for 27 years.

And they have done it the Welsh way, by going back to their roots, re-inventing themselves and putting their foot on the pedal to restore former glories. Now the trick will be to make it last.