This is Wales’ best the World Cup, let’s
WHEN Wales arrived in Tokyo yesterday, Warren Gatland was thrust straight into an evening press conference.
And, unfortunately, he was there to deliver bad news.
Here’s everything he had to say on Josh Navidi’s tournament-ending injury, what happens next and much more.
Q: How do you reflect on the France game having slept on it? WG:
We’re a bit disappointed about yesterday’s performance. We didn’t play as well as we could.
France played exceptionally well but, on reflection, I think we showed some great character and got the win.
Disappointed with a few aspects, but looking forward to the semi-final of a World Cup and getting excited about that.
Q: How is Josh Navidi? WG:
He’ll be ruled out with a grade two hamstring injury. We’ll be looking to bring in a replacement, but we’ve just got to go through that process, go through World Rugby at the moment and send some stuff through to them and for them to agree for a replacement to come out.
Q: Will it be a back-rower? WG:
No, it won’t be a back-rower.
Q: Could it be a back? WG:
Probably someone in the backline, yeah.
Q: Do you have a clean bill of health otherwise? WG:
A few sore bodies but everyone’s ready to go for a light training session, a recovery session tomorrow, and then a big training day on Wednesday.
Q: How much of a blow is it to lose Josh? WG:
It’s very disappointing for him as he’s been very influential and important for us in the last year. It’s disappointing to have a player ruled out, but in saying that these games are so physical and to have only one player ruled out at this stage is a real positive for us.
Q: You’ve been quite fortunate with injuries so far though? WG:
We’ve been pretty lucky and that’s been the whole experience since 2015 – about creating depth in the squad and trying to keep everyone as healthy as we possibly can.
Q: You suggested that teams have figured you out yesterday, can you elaborate on that? WG:
I just think there is a blueprint which has been quite successful for teams at times. Having gone through the game, France used their pods of three pretty effectively off nine.
They latched on and binded early to get some forward momentum and that was pretty effective for them. I thought they defended exceptionally well in terms of their line speed and their wingers came in pretty hard which put us under pressure.
South Africa will be very similar with their line speed, that was good against Japan. They will be very physical up front with scrum and lineout. They’ll kick a lot with a lot of box kicking as well.
But we’re fairly familiar with South Africa and have had a fair bit of success against them. We’ve had some close encounters in recent years and had some good success.
Q: Is this a different South Africa side to the one that you’ve beaten so regularly in recent years? WG:
I’m not too sure. The thing with every team is having that time together, three or four months of preparation, gives you opportunities to work on things, get fitter, more cohesive.
They won the Rugby Championship and had a very good performance against the All Blacks in that draw. Even though the All Blacks started the World Cup pool game well, South Africa came back into it and it was a tight contest.
We’ve got to be excited about where we are at the moment and having a chance to be in the World Cup final.
Q: This is pretty much the only trophy you haven’t won, how keen are you to complete the set? WG:
It is the same for a number of players as well. I have two games left and I might never be involved in international rugby again.
That’s a lot of motivation. For a lot of players this will be their last World Cup – a lot in their early 30s who probably won’t be around in four years time.
They are extremely motivated to make the most of the opportunities and hopefully produce a performance on Sunday.
Q: Did you miss Jonathan Davies last night? WG:
Yeah, we missed his experience last night. Owen Watkin is a player for the future, he’s a quality kid and has been great for us off the bench. He did well up against two big, physical French centres. They caused a few problems with their size and physicality.
In the end the difficult decision with Jonathan was going into the game with two midfielders who weren’t 100 per cent. Hadleigh still has a broken bone in his hand, and had a shoulder contusion from the last game.
He was carrying that. To have one centre (playing) that was fit was pretty important.
You miss anyone with the experience of Jonathan. It’s always going to be a loss.
Q: You’ve had some good starts to games in this tournament but also some poor ones... WG:
If you could give me the answer on that I’d appreciate it.
Q: But it’s fair to say you can’t afford a poor start this weekend? WG:
No, you can’t. We had a kick off last night where they knocked it on. And we probably didn’t take advantage of that.
And then there was another knock on where Dan Biggar’s done a little chip over the top and the referee’s called advantage over and we put ourselves under pressure and we ended up on our goalline.
There’s probably a time there we should have shifted that ball and used the advantage in a better way and that put us some pressure.
France came out of the blocks and scored a couple of quick tries.
But we were lucky enough to get back in the game and, as I said, showed some great character to win the game.
Q: You’ve had some close games against South Africa in the past? WG:
They pose different threats to some other teams. So we’re pretty familiar with the way they play. There was a period a few years ago where they were trying to emulate