WE SHOULD HAVE WON, SAYS SIWAN
SIWAN Lillicrap was left to reflect on one that got away after Wales’ Six Nations campaign ended in anti-climatic fashion as Italy secured a last-minute victory at Cardiff Arms Park.
Wales suffered defeat as the Italians scored their only try of the game when Wales were down to 13 players after two yellow cards.
Fly-half Robyn Wilkins and No. 8 Sioned Harries were both sent to the sin-bin in quick succession during the first half, which opened up the game for flanker Beatrice Veronese to cut through the defence and offload to scrum-half Sara Barattin, who dotted down in the 32nd minute before Michela Sillari converted.
Wales did not get on the scoreboard until the 71st minute via a successful Wilkins penalty, and looked to have clinched an 11th-hour comeback win thanks to an unconverted try from replacement scrum-half Keira Bevan in the 75th minute to give Wales an 8-7 lead.
But Sillari won it at the death with a successful penalty after Wales were deemed to be offside.
Wales captain Lillicrap told BBC Sport: “We absolutely should have won. For the first 20 minutes we were all over them but didn’t convert any points.
“We got over, we got ahead but the way we finished is heart wrenching.
“But we win together and we lose together and we fought to the death there.”
Despite the disappointing conclusion to a positive campaign, Wales’ first since 12 full-time and 12 parttime Welsh Rugby Union contracts were awarded, Wales still celebrated their best tournament finish in 13 years, having secured third place for the first time since 2009.
The hosts started well but failed to convert dominance and possession in the opening 20 minutes into any points, while their malfunctioning line-out, errors and lack of kicking range caused problems of their own.
Italy, who recorded their second win of the tournament, were happy to slow down the ball at the breakdown to further frustrate Wales.
Wales flanker Alisha Butchers made an encouraging clean break in the opening few minutes and Lisa Neumann threatened to score twice, but preventing Italy from scoring while missing two players was always going to be a tough task.
Wilkins was yellow-carded on 20 minutes for a high tackle, before referee Amber Maclachlan was back in front of the big screen with the TMO a minute later to send Harries to join her for a similar challenge.
The match ended with a series of penalty scrums to Wales as they went in search of a winning score, with a try coming from Bevan after a Harries offload.
But Wilkins missed the conversion, with a tense few minutes following in front of 3,373 fans as Italy managed to win a penalty in the 79th minute and secure a dramatic victory.