It might have been Wales’ first victory at home in 0ver two years, but for Japan and head coach Eddie Jones, it was a night to forget in Cardiff.
A Jarrod Evans penalty from ten meters in from the left hand touchline saw Wales take advantage of the extra man, which they had for a decent period of the game with Jones’ side giving away three yellow cards.
Jones, who was clearly annoyed in the post-match interview with his side’s performance, says that they should have closed the game out in Cardiff.
“We should have won, we’re in a position to win it. We didn’t manage the last part of the game well and you know, we fell down in our fundamentals,” Jones said.
“Congratulations to Wales, they took their opportunities, and obviously were able to kick that last penalty goal.”
Jones adds that the ill-discipline from his side hurt their chances significantly, and their inability to get the ball back at the lineout was costly.
“We had field position and line outs, and we weren’t able to execute the line outs, and we kept letting Wales back into the game.
“We’re a young team, we tend to get anxious about situations and try to do too much instead of just letting the play go. In terms of defensively, we gave away three silly penalties at the start of the game and then attacking wise, we had a we had a lot of quick ball, and we just needed to keep the ball.
“It was one of those games, you needed to keep the ball, and we just were too anxious, too eager to score tries quickly.”
Japan captain and new Hurricanes Super Rugby Pacific recruit Warner Dearns echoes Jones’ thoughts, saying you can’t give away that many penalties in Test matches.
“We gave away too many penalties, we made too many mistakes on attack, we let them into their game and they took the chances that they had, so they played really well,” Dearns said post-match.
Wales went down to 14 men when Josh Adams’ initial yellow card was upgraded to a red card in the 40th minute, which meant the first 20 minutes of the second half the home side they had to survive with one less player.
The 23-year-old lock explains that they tried to take advantage of Wales when they were down to 14, but just didn’t quite take the opportunities.
“Oh, we tried to take advantage of the man down and I just don’t think we took the opportunities that we had, and Wales played a really good game with 14 men.
“It never helps when we’re one man down in the bin, but we ended up with two as well and although the end of that first half, when we were with down men, we fought really hard.
“Had we not had those guys in the bin, it might have been a different story.”
AloJapan.com