Gatland proud of Wales performance despite home defeat
Gatland defended his tactics and put the loss down to individual errors
Also In The News
|
By Adam Leveridge
Bridgestone Motorsport's assistant technical manager Jun Matsuzaki said heavy rainfall and changeable conditions thwarted any attempts made to collect valuable data in Jerez. |  |
Friday, 26, Feb 2010 11:03
By Tom Powell.
Wales coach Warren Gatland insisted he was proud of his side's performance despite a string of errors that gifted France a 26-20 victory at the Millennium Stadium.
The hosts trailed 20-0 at the interval thanks to two interception tries from Alexis Palisson and Francois Trinh-Duc but fell just short of pulling off a second remarkable comeback in two weeks and Gatland was full of praise Wales' second half spirit.
"I am proud of our second half performance," he remarked. "We know we made too many mistakes and were the victim of our intercepts but I am pleased with the way the lads played in the second half and kept going.
"Having been 20-0 we went out and put France under pressure and we gave away a couple of needless penalties and missed some great opportunities that have cost us."
Despite his side making 23 errors in total Gatland defended his choice of tactics on the night.
"The tactics were the right ones, we just made too many individual errors. Perhaps we could have tried to turn them around more but our kicking game wasn't good enough and that contributes to the mistakes we made."
And with three wins out of three under their belts, the Welsh coach believes France will go on to win the Grand Slam.
"I think they'll go on and do it. But there's no doubt that we should have beaten them tonight but we made too many mistakes."
Despite it being his 33rd birthday and grabbing his 50th try in Welsh colours, winger Shane Williams' evening was marred by the result and believes Wales need to make changes to their game ahead of the final two Six Nations encounters.
Williams commented: "It's a bit déjà vu the way we've played in the last three games because we've been punished for trying to play rugby.
"Tonight we began positively but those two intercepted passes knocked the wind out of our sails. Credit to France though they defended well and stopped us playing how we wanted to."
The loss all but ends Welsh hopes of picking up the championship this year but they have pride to play for when they travel to Croke Park next weekend which is followed by a home tie against Italy to end this year's fixtures.
But France still have bigger fish to fry as they prepare to take on Italy next week before a trip to Twickenham in a match that could decide the destination of this year's trophy.
Tom Powell