Dewi Lake says there is “no hiding away” from Wales’ lineout problems, with the All Blacks next up in Cardiff.
The former Ospreys hooker captained Wales to a 28-21 bonus-point win over Japan at the Principality Stadium on Saturday, but six lineouts went begging.
He said: “They are the number one line-out defensive team in the world, for us there’s no hiding away, we were probably poor in that area, but credit has to go to them and the work they do as well.”
He added: “There’s work for us to do in the week around that, but we’ll put that right and we’ll be ready to go again next weekend.”
‘We probably have missed the feeling of winning’
Lake admitted the result meant a lot, and said: “Look, it’s always pleasing to win.”
He added: “We’ve worked hard, we probably have missed the feeling of winning for a long time.”
He paid tribute to Japan too: “To get over the line is brilliant against a Japanese side that are excellent as well, they’ve beaten some good teams over the summer, so to get the job done is brilliant.”
All Blacks in town
New Zealand come to Cardiff next Saturday afternoon, with Australia the week after.
Lake said Wales had challenged themselves “to grow, to grow quickly”, and added: “I think with the two tests coming up we probably have to be better in some areas than we were today if we want to perform in the next two weeks as well.”
Facing the All Blacks will change how Wales prepare this week, he said, but not how they want to play: “There’ll be no change from us in terms of the speed we want to play at, the speed we want to grow at.”
He added: “Obviously, the challenge coming up next week will change our week slightly in terms of what we’re preparing for.”
‘An incredible amount of confidence’
Lake said starting the autumn with a win and a bonus point, while still having plenty to work on, was “excellent” for the group.
He said: “I think there’s massive areas of that game that give us an incredible amount of confidence.”
He singled out the attack: “Some of our attacking work, our line-break stuff is brilliant and we’ll also get confidence from working on the things that we need to be better at.”
Josh Adams scored twice as Wales ran in four tries, and Louis Rees-Zammit was named player of the match.
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