Gareth Anscombe: Wales have to improve quickly after 10th straight Test loss
Gareth Anscombe says that Wales will be “hard on ourselves” as they pick through the wreckage left by a record-equalling 10th successive Test match defeat.Wales are arguably at the lowest ebb in their 143-year international rugby history following Fiji’s 24-19 victory in Cardiff.
Mitigating factors
“We just need to tidy up a few areas and not make stuff hard for ourselves. We’ve got to be more accurate than what we were (against Fiji).
“We need to reflect and look at why it happened and how it happened, but ultimately, discipline hurt us. I think they kicked 12 points (from penalties) and you can’t give away freebies like that at this level.
“Only a win was good enough, and we didn’t get it. We will be hard on ourselves, but I do think we will be better for the run-out and know that we have got to improve and get better pretty quickly.
“This has got to hurt, and it should hurt. We are playing at home and we should back ourselves to win.
“It is going to hurt, and it’s going to sting for a couple of days, but you can’t dwell on it for too long at this level. We’ve got to find a way to pick ourselves back up.”
Wallabies
“I think if we can grow another 10-20 per cent in some little areas then we have got a real chance.
“Without a doubt the Wallabies are growing in confidence, so it is going to be a great challenge, but we’ve had success against them in the past here.
“I know the Wallabies are really well coached under Joe (Schmidt), and we know what he has done with Ireland in the past.
“I can’t help but feel we probably lost a couple of key moments (against Fiji). The Fijians, to their credit, put us under a lot of pressure. We just gave away too many penalties.
“It is a frustrating one because I thought we could have been a lot better. Full credit to the Fijians, they stuck at it, applied a lot of pressure and we just weren’t accurate enough at key times to get the result.”
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Although I agree with Gareth Anscombe that Wales need to improve fast, he’s just stating the obvious. Sometimes I wonder are the players actually taking on board what the coaches are saying after each and every loss? Why I ask this question. In my opinion. No. If they were we wouldn’t be on the losing side or continue to make the same old same junior rugby errors of dropping the ball, overthrowing the lineout balls, throwing out on the full Welsh ball, and less said about the penalty count the better. Sadly it’s not just the structure of Welsh regional… Read more »