Gatland: We won’t play that way again

WARREN Gatland warned his Wales side it could get “embarrassing” against England if they repeat the performance which saw them edge past Italy 26-15 in Rome.

Gatland’s side put in a patchy, disjointed display as they had to rely on second-half tries from Josh Adams and Owen Watkin.

Wales have now won their last 11 matches which equals the country’s record run from 1907 to 1910.

Gatland was unequivocal that his men cannot afford to repeat their Italian display when they face England in Cardiff a week on Saturday.

“We came here, did a job, Now we can start thinking about the next two weeks,” Gatland said. “There are lots we need to improve.

“We didn’t have enough tempo at line-out time. There were a lot of lineouts off the mark and we had to keep stepping away. Italy were closing that space down pretty quickly.

“We all need to improve and in lot of areas if we are going to beat England because they are a pretty good side.

“If we play like that against England it could be embarrassing – but we won’t.”

Gatland made tenchanges for this game and added: “With the crowd behind us and another couple of weeks of preparation we will be better. I need to take some criticism for making so many changes and perhaps not having the continuity. But the plan all along was to have a double-edge with the Six Nations and the World Cup down the road.

“Sometimes you wonder if you would have done things differently and sometimes you would.”

Gatland added: “I am still satisfied with the win. It wasn’t a great performance, but sometimes you have to win ugly. We didn’t play as well as we would have liked, but I thought the loose forward trio of Aaron Wainwright, Thomas Young and Josh Navidi – who are all inexperienced – did well.

“We didn’t speak about the record this week at all, but we will speak about it before England and if they break it against them it will be special.

“It will be some atmosphere against England and a lot of people will write us off for that and we will stay under the radar which will be good for us.

“People are criticising us for the performance, but you have to give credit to Italy. That was the best Italian performance I’ve seen in my time as Welsh coach.

“They are a tough team to break down in Rome.”

Conor O’Shea’s side have now lost their last 19 Six Nations matches and haven’t won in the competition since 2015.

“I take no consolation from the fact we scored the same amount of tries as Wales,” O’Shea said. “We will never give up and keep working to try and achieve success.

“Do we expect to be world champions? No. But I am in this for the long haul of Italian rugby.”