The Welsh rugby team’s performance in defeat against Ireland has “won the crowd back” after a terrible run of form, according to a former Wales international.
Jamie Roberts, who was capped 94 times and is on the WRU board, appeared as an pundit during S4C’s coverage of the Six Nations clash on Saturday. He said it was good to see “energy until the 80th minute” and that it was the best he’s seen Wales play in some time, referring to a “difficult 18 months”.
While it was a much-improved performance from Matt Sherratt’s Wales in what was the first game after the end of Warren Gatland’s second stint as coach, the side still ended up losing 27-18 as Simon Easterby’s team kept up their 100% win record in this year’s tournament, with their eyes now firmly set on a Grand Slam. You can read much more about the game here.
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Easterby’s wife Sarra Elgan was hosting S4C’s coverage and asked Roberts what it was like to watch Wales on Saturday afternoon as an ex-player and a fan, and the former centre joked that it was nice “just to enjoy the boys playing rugby!”, no doubt indicating that the side hasn’t done much of that during a dismal run of defeats under Gatland.
“You can see the smiles on their (the players) faces,” he added. “Before the game I don’t think anyone thought we could win any of the three remaining games, but this performance has given us something to build on. Over the next two games we have a fantastic chance if we can improve on that performance.
“We showed more attack today than we have in the last year. I know we’ve lost the game so I don’t want to get too excited, but I think the boys won the crowd back today. Sherratt will be proud of what the boys have given today after just one week with a new coach. The impact in that time has been pretty special.”
Former Wales hooker and captain Ken Owens was also pitchside for S4C, and he said Wales proved that they are a better side than what they have shown in recent months. “Ireland have a settled squad at the moment, they know how they want to play,” said Owens. “I think Ireland were unsure what Wales were going to produce today and Wales were great. They just had the experience when needed in the big moment.
“It’s been hard over the past year. To see the boys cross the gain line and do the basics right, better than they have for a while, it gave them a chance to build themselves into the game. We need to keep this up now because Scotland will be looking at this and we need to build on this over the next two weeks.
“There was a lot of good things out there today. It was good coming back to Cardiff today, with this crowd and how inspirational they can be, and the players went up a level today I think, for many reasons. They showed what they can do. It will be a different challenge going to Scotland and they’ll need to develop and keep onto the good things that happened today and improve on those in two weeks’ time.
Roberts' former centre partner for Wales and the British and Irish Lions, Jonathan Davies, was also on punditry duty on Saturday afternoon. He said: “I’m sure during the next two weeks they will look back at the chances they’ve created and make sure they are more precise in those very important moments. All the boys had a point to prove and you could see that in the way they attacked and how hard they worked. We have two weeks now to improve again.”
