Warren Gatland: Wales can take a lot from the positives despite defeat

Kiwi, Gatland, 59, returning to for his second spell as coach of the Wales national side had seen Wales fall behind early to three first half tries from Caelan Dories, James Ryan and James Lowe to put Ireland in a commanding position at the break.

The Welsh improved and responded with a Liam Williams try in the second period, before Ireland wrapped up the game late on with Josh Van der Flier running over to earn the away side a bonus point with Ireland’s fourth. 

Gatland though felt there were many things the Welsh could take from their second half performance against the World number one rankled side.

‘Strangely I’m not that disappointed with many things in the game. The things I’m disappointed in are things that I can fix up, the first half, the slow start and the penalties we gave away, which seemed to be needless, they created a momentum off that”, explained Gatland.

“When you look at the game, we had pretty much the same number of entries into their 22 and they came away with the points, whilst we missed out on one or two tries.

“We put ourselves in a position which we could have taken advantage of but didn’t. They are a good side and are doing that at the minute, they’re clinical.

“For us we’ll take a lot from that to work on the positives. There are things we need to work on, but I thought being down we put them under some pressure and created some opportunities but weren’t quite good enough at the moment to finish those off.

“We spoke about the discipline and the penalties we were giving away and we wanted to get a bit more in the second half and I thought we brought that. We were much better, we put Ireland under a lot of pressure. 

“If we had scored again, it would have made an interesting last 20 minutes, but that wasn’t to be, but I can be positive about the things that we can fix up”.

Gatland was also pleased with the performances of the young trio of Rio Dyer, Jack Morgan and debutant Joe Hawkins who the New Zealander believes impressed and will learn from the match.

“We spoke about it [the blend between youth and experience] before we picked the side. We spoke about how we need to look at some other combinations. Some of the young boys stepped up and showed some good things.

“They still would have learnt a lot today. It would have been a great experience for them. We have some other youngsters in the squad too that we need to expose too for the rest of the tournament.

“It was tough and disappointing, but they are a good side that has been together for a long time. They don’t make many mistakes and manage the game well and that’s why they are the number one side in the World. That’s the step up that we need to take, being clinical and patient and we’ll work on that over the next few weeks.”

(Lead image: Planet Rugby)