Defending champions Wales will head to Ireland after a hard-fought 23-15 win against Italy in the first round of the Six Nations.
Embarrassed
Wallace also believes that too much has been made over the Warren Gatland and Brian O'Driscoll drama and says it is disrespectful to the Lions and to some other players.
Gatland decided to drop O'Driscoll from the third and final Lions Test in Australia - a Test match that the Lions won to secure their first Test series victory since 1997. However Gatland was vilified for denying the Ireland legend a fairytale ending.
"Of course everyone is going on about Warren Gatland and Brian O'Driscoll but I will be highly embarrassed if the Irish fans give Gatland a hard time and boo him," said the former prop, who helped the Lions win the 1997 series in South Africa.
"In my opinion Gatland should be celebrated - he is a Lions winning coach and he had to make a tough decision. Jonathan Davies was outstanding in that third Test and whether Brian would have been better or worse is not really an argument because Gatland decided to go for Davies.
"I think there was a lot of disrespect to other players who were playing really well but who did not get on the tour. Peter O'Mahony was probably the most consistent Irish forward but he did not make the Lions tour; Jamie Heaslip was dropped for the last Test in Australia too, but the reaction over O'Driscoll back in Ireland was completely over the top. That said I would have loved to have seen him in that final Test in a fairytale ending but the Lions tour is always bigger than one player."
O'Driscoll may have lost a bit of pace over the years but Wallace believes that Ireland's most capped player is still vital for Ireland's campaign.
"O'Driscoll fully deserves to be the most capped player in Irish rugby and is closing in on the most capped player in international rugby.
"I do think it is slightly different in Ireland where you have a smaller pool of players than, say, in New Zealand. He is a key player for Ireland and while he may have lost a yard of pace and may not be the most physical player, his handling skill and the way he reads a game is superb.
"He was also ferocious in defence against Scotland and really led from the front - he may not be the searing threat he was in the past but he is the glue that holds everything together in the backline."
