Pivac: We’re very disappointed, we came here to win
CAPTAIN Dan Biggar insists Wales must beat Scotland next week to prevent their Six Nations title defence evaporating before it has barely begun.
Only a late Taine Basham try in yesterday’s heavy defeat to Ireland prevented the reigning champions from drawing a blank for the first time in the Six Nations.
‘It’s been a disappointing afternoon and we haven’t got long to get it right,’ insisted the fly-half.
‘It’s a must-win next week if we have any hope of keeping hold of our title… we can’t wait to get back to Cardiff next week.’
Wayne Pivac’s side were undone at the start of both halves and spent most of the afternoon on the back foot.
‘No-one’s happy with defeat, we came here wanting to win so they’re all very disappointed,’ Pivac said.
‘We talked about what we needed to do in that game from the outset and that was to match them physically and our discipline needed to be spot on. We didn’t achieve that.’
Biggar added: ‘It will be a tough watch back on Monday.’
The visitors were made to pay for a second-half yellow card to Josh Adams, who had a difficult day after moving to outside centre. ‘Going a player down certainly doesn’t help but we’ve got to regroup and be better,’ added Pivac.
‘It’s one of those things. Seeing it live the referee thought it was fine, two players colliding. The ball went one way and Josh has gone the other. He’s picked up a yellow card and we move on.’
Pivac defended the No 13 gamble, claiming: ‘I think Josh saved us on a number of occasions... to single out one person is not the right thing to do. He didn’t go too badly at all.’
Wales arrived in Dublin with a lengthy injury list – Pivac was unable to call on eight Lions including Alun Wyn Jones, Ken Owens and George North.
Biggar admitted ‘obviously missing the big players is an issue’ but Pivac vowed not to dwell on those names absent from the teamsheet.
‘We can’t go back in time in terms of the players missing, we need to learn our lessons from today and this is the squad we’ve got.’
Biggar said Ireland ‘won too many physical collisions’. He led his country for the first time but added: ‘Discipline and the physicality were the two things we needed to bring, coming to Dublin, and we probably didn’t get those two quite right.
‘It was a frustrating afternoon. We didn’t get enough front-foot ball or dominate enough collisions to really allow us to put pressure on Ireland for large periods, like they did to us. Ultimately Ireland won too many physical collisions, and for us, for whatever reason, that is what we need to go back on and have a look.
‘The collisions in rugby, if you don’t win them and especially against a team the way Ireland play, it was going to be a hard afternoon, and that is how it turned out.
‘That will be a huge focus for us this week, along with the discipline. We are better than that today.’
Pivac added: ‘Collectively we talked about the start we wanted – to match them physically.
‘You have to do that when you come to Dublin, and our discipline needed to back that up. We weren’t able to do that – it was evident with the penalty count in the first 20 minutes. When you’re defending for long periods like that– there were 100odd tackles made in the first half. When you make over 100 tackles in a half, a bit of fatigue does set in. It happens to any side.
‘We have to make sure (about) the start of both halves, because we gave them too many points in that part of the game.’
The coach will consider changes for next week, especially in the forwards with the possible addition of Ross Moriarty helping the physicality problems.
‘We will need to review the game first and foremost because I think we were a little bit better than maybe some of the stats might have indicated in that area of the game,’ added Pivac.