Warren Gatland was left frustrated after Wales imploded in the final 10 minutes to lose their Rugby World Cup warm-up against England at Twickenham.
Wales looked to be heading towards an impressive victory after a penalty try and a Tomos Williams score put them ahead, but despite England being reduced to 12 men Wales surrendered a commanding lead and finished the game on the wrong side of a 19-17 scoreline.
Here’s everything Gatland had to say as he held court following Wales’ disappointing defeat in London:
Question: How do you assess that final 10 minutes?
Warren Gatland: “Mixed emotions, really. I’m furious we didn’t win the game but it answered a few questions for us about certain individuals.
“The game management in that final quarter wasn’t good enough. We should have been comfortable.
“It was a big moment in the game not taking the kick-off and giving England back a bit of momentum by not clearing our lines and allowing them to score from that and get back into the game which was disappointing.”
How much will the players learn from that, going into the World Cup?
“Hopefully a heck of a lot. There were some good things we did last week and then today we capitulated in terms of our accuracy and some guys not knowing their roles, which for me was disappointing because we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring there is clarity and everyone knows their roles.
“We gave away some soft penalties where we piggy-backed them up the field, and gave them those chances. I think we’ll have learnt a lot from that
“We’ve had eight caps over the last two weeks which is pretty good and that was the most experienced England team that they’ve ever put out in terms of the number of caps.
“You’ve got to be reasonably pleased with that. They didn’t really pressure us from an attacking perspective.
“There was a driving lineout maul which we were disappointed to concede. I’m disappointed at the moment but I’ll try to find some better positives over the next day or two.”
How are Dewi Lake and Taine Plumtree?
“Dewi looks like he’s got a bit of a knee issue and Taine has a shoulder issue which we’ll get scanned.”
A shame for Dewi given the nature of the game coming off after 26 minutes?
“He is pretty gutted and pretty disappointed. He’s gone to jackal on the ball, Owen Farrell has tried to roll him, and he’s ended up landing on his leg. It’s unfortunate and it looks like he’s got a knee injury but we don’t know the extent of it or how bad it is.”
What will your approach be for next weekend against South Africa?
“There’s still some players we need to find out about and potentially give an opportunity to. You couldn’t ask for better warm-up matches in terms of the physicality we are looking for, with England home and away and then South Africa. It’s going to be the same sort of test upfront and for us we need to take the learnings from today.”
How are Dafydd Jenkins, Ryan Elias and George North?
“Daf’s been managed in terms of he doesn’t need an operation. We injected him on Wednesday and he’s about four weeks away.
“Ryan is probably the same, three or four weeks, and George is fine. He’s doing contact so he shouldn’t be too far away.”
Rate the Wales players at Twickenham:
After these two warm-up games, are you ahead of where you thought you’d be?
“We’ve still got some work to do. I’m pretty pleased because we’ve got eight new caps and we’ve rotated from one week to the next.
“There are a lot of positives, but for me I hate losing, particulary when you put yourself in a position to close out a game. We need to review that and communicate that to the players. Hopefully the players out there will learn from those experiences.”
If you were to meet England at the World Cup, have you put some doubt in their minds?
“I think for both teams it’s quite a long way down the line in terms of how we potentially go in our groups. You build confidence from that and you build combinations.
“We think we are in a pretty good position where we are and I think England came with the approach where they were quite physical and wanted to bully us last week. That didn’t come off and they probably tried to play a little bit more rugby today.
“I think over the last two weeks they’ve been pretty even contests between England and Wales and it’s about taking your chances, getting a few calls from the referee, and having a little bit of luck.
What are your thoughts on Owen Farrell’s yellow card getting upgraded to red?
“I thought it was the right decision on the day. Hopefully for Owen’s sake he doesn’t get too long a ban because I think we need people like him in the game. He’ll be a big loss for England if he does pick up a lengthy ban but given [his] previous I’m not too sure what’s going to happen but fingers crossed it’s not too bad for him.”
What do you think would be an apt ban?
“I don’t know. We’ve seen so much inconsistency already in the last few weeks.
“I look back with the Lions where Dylan Hartley gets an 11-week ban for abusing the referee, so with everything all we are looking for is consistency.
“We had a situation last week where Louis Rees-Zammit was denied a try but it’s one phase and the referee has called advantage over and then today they nearly score from a cross-field kick which would have been a great try from them but the referee comes back for the advantage and they take the three points.
“All we are looking for is just consistency and we hope we will get that during the World Cup.”
Were you happy with Freddie Steward receiving a yellow card or do you think it should have been red?
“That was probably on the threshold from being a yellow to a red where he’s taken him out when he’s so high in the air. Sometimes if that decision was made by a different official it would have been a red card. It was pretty close but it’ll be interesting to see what they come back with when they review that.”
What did you make of Joe Roberts and Keiran Williams?
“I think for us as coaches it’s about getting settled on a midfield combination. I thought Joe did well and he grew into the game as it went on.
“Keiran had couple of nice touches as well and he switched play with Sam Parry which I thought was good. He’ll probably be a little bit disappointed with the penalty from the kick-off but at this level you can’t coach experience.
“For the players it’s about learning from that game last week and for the new caps today learning from this game and how they can get better, and what they’d do differently the next time around.”
How did you think Kemsley Mathias did on debut?
“I thought he did alright. He’ll be disappointed with the scrum penalty but he’ll definitely learn from that. He’s had a scrum penalty but he’s knocked one on as well and he’ll be a little bit down about that. But it was a good opportunity for him to get out there.”
