Poor start proves costly as Wales leave it too late to salvage anything

Wales crashed to their second RBS Six Nations defeat of the campaign as France served further notice of their Grand Slam credentials with a 26-20 triumph.

Alexis Palisson and Francois Trinh-Duc scored breakaway tries as France raced into a 20-0 lead on the back of a dominant first-half performance.

Wales, who staged a remarkable comeback from 21-9 to beat Scotland two weekends ago, attempted another spirited rally last night.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Two penalties from Stephen Jones and a Lee Halfpenny try reduced the arrears to 20-13 – but Warren Gatland's men had left themselves too much to do.

Penalties from Frederik Michalak and Morgan Parra pushed France clear again, rendering Shane Williams's brilliant solo try in the last minute a mere consolation.

Afterwards, Gatland admitted his side had to stop "pressing the self-destruct button".

"I'm proud of the second-half performance," said Gatland. "We were 20 points down, victims of our own intercepts, and we could have given it away but I'm proud of what we did in terms of coming back.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"The guys dug deep and put on a really good display in the second half. France never really threatened our line, they got two intercepts and kicked four penalties but never really got into our 22. We just have to stop pushing the self-destruct button. We have a few things to work on to make sure we don't make critical mistakes, but if we hadn't conceded soft tries in the first half it was a game for us to win." Winger Shane Williams added: "It was a bit of deja vu, the way we've started the last three games. It's very frustrating, sometimes you get punished for trying to play rugby.

"We try to play rugby, we started positive but two intercepts made it very difficult."

Andy Robinson told his Scotland team they had no excuses for not delivering a "winning performance" against Italy today.

Robinson brought his players to Rome three days before the crunch Six Nations clash at the Stadio Flaminio to ensure there was no possibility of their preparations being disrupted by travel.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The early arrival has also given them the chance to become more familiar with a city that has not proved a happy hunting ground for the Scots in the past decade.

"We're very lucky as sports people that we can travel to some great places and I think it is about enjoying the culture," said Robinson.

"But coming here to win is the main focus.

"We got here early, so we got the travel taken care of, and there are no excuses about us giving a winning performance.

"Winning away from home is about going out and taking the game to the opposition, being accurate about being able to do that. We want to get our confidence with the way we attack against Italy. But also defensively we've got to not give penalties away and get our line going forward."