Gallant Wales took small comfort from outscoring World Cup heavyweights England three tries to one as they went out of the tournament with all guns blazing at Lang Park in Brisbane on Sunday.
The Welsh produced one of their greatest performances of recent times to shellshock England with a 10-3 halftime lead, before the Six Nations champions regrouped for a 28-17 quarter-final victory to set up a semi-final next weekend against France.
”The game of rugby is not only about scoring tries, it’s not about giving away penalties and we obviously gave away too many,” coach Steve Hansen told a post-match press conference after Jonny Wilkinson kicked England to victory.
”Even 20 minutes into the second half I felt we could still win the game, the game was there to be won, it was a true contest.
”If they’re [England] honest with themselves they’ll know it could have gone either way themselves.”
The Welsh were given a mighty ovation as they walked around the field after fulltime, the crowd showing their appreciation of their wholehearted efforts in conceding massive chunks of possession and territory to the English and being forced into making 174 tackles to England’s 105.
Wales, a rugby power in the 1970s, went out of the World Cup with a bang. Seven days after scoring four tries and scaring the life out of the All Blacks in a 53-37 defeat, they again rose to the challenge disorientating England’s composure and play structure in a exhilarating opening half.
New Zealander Hansen revealed that he had purposefully held back the way Wales wanted to play to prevent New Zealand and England from preparing an effective counter.
”We came to the World Cup with a plan in mind, the first was to qualify, and to do that without showing everybody the way we really wanted to play against the two big sides because of their ability to analyse and work out everything you do before you do it to them, we kept it up our sleeve,” Hansen said.
A centrepiece of Hansen’s tactics was to get away from England’s ‘umbrella defence’.
”England defend a lot different than New Zealand do and I have had a question mark about that and if we could get beyond what they call their umbrella defence that we could move the ball wide and in doing so then ask their big five tight forwards to run around the park a bit.
”We wanted to ask questions about their fitness and their ability to move around the park.”
Hansen said it was ”gut-wrenching” to get so close, yet not beat England and advance to the semifinals against France.
”When we reflect back, not only the players and management can be very proud, but also the whole country can.
”They were asked to stand up against New Zealand and England within seven days and from a coaching point of view I couldn’t have asked for more.
”Life’s like that, you play your heart out and the result doesn’t come your way, so you just have to take it on the chin and move on and add to the momentum we’ve got from the tournament into next year’s Six Nations.” – Sapa-AFP