Warren Gatland addressed the media after Wales' 43-0 defeat to France in Paris. Here is everything he had to say.
Warren, your assessment of that?
Probably a little bit frustrating. We’ve tried to go with a positive attitude in terms of the way we wanted to play. We started well, but when we look back, we put ourselves under a little bit of pressure probably at times by overplaying. There were chances, particularly in the conditions, maybe just to put the ball in behind and turn around a little bit. I thought that's something that they did well, obviously, they have a little bit more experience in a couple of areas. But I can't question the effort of the players out there, we just probably didn't help ourselves with turnovers and allowing them the opportunity to capitalise on that.
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Just experience and tactical nous missing?
Yeah, it's probably that. It’s the understanding that international rugby is tight and particularly when you’re playing a quality side like France, when you get to that first 10 or 15 minutes and it’s 0-0, you’re thinking let’s frustrate them a little bit and if we don’t get any reward, can we turn them round? I thought they did that well in terms of putting us under pressure. When we did go to the air, we got some rewards ourselves. I thought it was working for us and we probably needed to use that opportunity a little bit more. That’s some of the game management that some of the players will learn from tonight’s experience.
Can you take us inside that dressing room at the full time whistle and tell us what it's like in there?
They’re disappointed but they realise what a quality side they are up against and you can’t question how hard they tried. There were times where we had them under pressure and we didn’t capitalise. Probably when they look back, there were times where we've gone three or four phases and haven't got anything out of it and have carried on trying to play and ended up going nowhere. So that's the learnings from that situation. We talked about being positive and brave and sometimes in those situations you’ve got to be really positive and brave in the first couple of phases. If it doesn’t come off for you, then you look at then turning them around a bit in the wider channels, little dinks in behind and taking to the air and stuff. But you can’t question the effort and the want of the players to try and shift the ball and to try and put France under pressure
How are Owen Watkin and Aaron Wainwright?
We have to get them assessed. They both don’t look brilliant at the moment.
Owen’s in a brace with his knee so it looks like it could be an ACL and Aaron needs another head injury assessment. He’s got quite a nasty gash on his face, down through his lip.
Where does next week rank in your career?
I don’t think that you can rank it in my career because it's an important game for Wales. It's not about where it ranks for me. We’ve just had a couple of cap presentations in the changing rooms with Nicky Smith and Dan Edwards which was good and they spoke really well. The players have worked hard in the last couple of weeks and I think we're pretty aware of how important this week is for us. We get to go down to Nice tomorrow. We're down there for the week. I think that'll be really important for this group and everyone being together and looking closely at tonight and where we can continue to make improvements. I thought there were lots of positives, particularly the scrum which was good tonight, some good stuff on the lineout and some really good defensive sets. It’s about where can we fix up and just be game smart to keep putting the opposition under pressure and not putting ourselves under the pressure that we put on ourselves.
How difficult psychologically is it to pick up the players after each game?
It’s a good question. I don't think it's a completely bad night at office because there were parts of that game that were good. We were playing against a team with so much depth even though they were missing a few players and one or two players had a pretty significant impact on the game in terms of being able to convert opportunities into points. I think for us, next week becomes pretty important for us, we can't hide away from that fact and we need to get the monkey off our back at the moment. But I when I look at those forwards and the way they kept carrying and the way they kept defending, they gave it everything. We need to make sure we're smart in terms of the way that we play and to get that win next week in Rome.
Happy with how you dealt with France’s physicality?
When they came to Cardiff last year, that was definitely the impact of their bench below. I thought our guys fronted up well, I thought in particular the forwards worked hard and I can’t question that. There were some strong carries. I thought we were a bit unlucky in a few calls, there was a pretty obvious head high tackle on Josh Adams that wasn't picked up. I thought the penalty against James Botham for not releasing, when we looked at the replay for us there was a clear release and then we get an official warning. Freddie Thomas to be yellow carded for a charge down, it looks pretty marginal to me. There were some pretty key moments in terms of some of the decisions we felt didn’t go our way, but sometimes you need to put up with that.
Thoughts on Tom Rogers performance?
He worked really hard today. He chased well, he’s still pretty green and you can see that. But we see him as a player with a big future. His calves were tightening up in that second half so that was a bit challenging for him, but hopefully he will have learnt and gained a lot of experience from tonight.
Liam and Josh impact on the squad?
The last week or so, just having that experience… Liam's had a little bit of a issue with his knee, and you could see him hobbling a couple of times this evening. It was a shame that we lost Owen so early, we may have looked at making a change there and then. Obviously, Josh is coming back from a bit of a layoff as well. So, you know, hopefully he'll be better, fitter and sharper from tonight's experience.
