By Evannah Hastings
Steve Tandy praised his players for scoring four tries against the All Blacks, but admitted there are many things they have to work on.
Wales’ head coach would have been fully aware that his side were underdogs to an even larger degree than usual, but emphasised that some of the attacking work he witnessed by the hosts was outstanding.
Ultimately, New Zealand secured the dominant win most predicted, but not before wing Tom Rogers had dotted down for a hat-trick and his fellow wide-man Louis Rees-Zammit had followed him over for a fourth.
“Some of the tries we scored were outstanding,” said Tandy.
“There are still things for us to work on.
“The toughness, the effort they (the Welsh team_ put in right through the course of the game… as a coach, you know, I’m massively proud of them.
“Ultimately it’s not the score that you want, but having three debutantes against a team like the All Blacks…this is a huge effort from the group. I am massively proud.”
There was plenty of pressure throughout the game and Tandy was able to give insight into how that affected the boys in red. Yellow cards for prop Gareth Thomas and back row Taine Plumtree did not help.
Tandy added: “I thought there was a couple of harsh calls from us as a group. Look at Taine Plumtree’s decision, not rolling away.
“As a group, we’ve got to look at ourselves first and foremost.
“There are smaller things around these Test matches, like a couple of kick-offs….probably when we score, we want to exit instead of fumbling the ball.
“But that’s the game and again we need to be super clean in those areas of field where they will punish you if we give up those opportunities.”
Captain Dewi Lake noticed the boys impenetrable resilience even in the second half when the All Blacks were able to find the gaps in their defence.
He said: “We spoke about not giving up, we did look at an opportunity to score another try in the 81st minute and that shows a lot about the character of this group.
“We’ve spoken a lot about discipline this campaign, especially over the last couple of games, you give a team with the quality of the All Blacks that many entries into 22, it’s tough to stop them time after time of the time.
“But like Steve said, I think a lot of what we want to do, what we’ve been working on, shone through today.
“Our attacking shape really shone through.”
Tom Rogers managed to score a hattrick against the All Blacks marking a moment for the history book. Tandy shared his thoughts.
On Rogers’ hat-trick, Tandy said: “When Tommy got left out the team, he was his own biggest critic.
“So I’m massively proud of Tommy as I am of the group. To score four tries, including his hat-trick, tells you a little bit of the style of rugby we want to play.”