Gatland slams Welsh players
8 Nov 2008
Wales coach Warren Gatland castigated his players for their inability to beat the Springboks after dominating the closing stages of the Test.
Gatland desires a win over one of the southern hemisphere giants more than any other and he believes this was a perfect opportunity that went down the drain.
“I just had a real crack at the players in the changing rooms,” Gatland told the BBC, ”and said that if we want to be where we think we can be, good teams nail big moments, and we should be furious with that because we had a chance to beat the world champions and we let ourselves down.”
“I said to the guys they should be really disappointed. We were the best side out there today. We played most of the rugby,” said Gatland.
Despite the loss, Gatland believes his players will benefit looking ahead to their clashes with New Zealand and Australia later in the month.
“It’s a painful experience we’ve gone through today. Good teams handle pressure and they convert situations into points, and they’ve got to learn from that,” said Gatland.
The Welsh mentor concurred with the sentiments of Wales eighthman and Man of the Match Andy Powell and said the Dragons expect to beat one of the Tri-Nations teams soon.
“To be honest, I’m really proud of the performance,” he said.
“We know we’re not too far away [from beating the top teams] but we need to be more clinical.”
17 Comments
8 Nov 2008, 20:02 pm
slamming dragons
8 Nov 2008, 20:06 pm
Okay so they played well but were helped the ref and bok illdiscipline but now they starting to get cocky . The wobblies and the AB,s are gonna giv em a hiding
8 Nov 2008, 20:08 pm
A two man overlap on numerous occasions wasted by a forward going by himself. I would slam-dunk em too!
I must say as a Bok supporter I was never worried we would lose tho. Each time one of their backs would knock on or something stupid
8 Nov 2008, 20:09 pm
The convicts will get scalped by this bunch. Mark my words.
8 Nov 2008, 20:12 pm
#2 BULLETHEAD Jnr: I doubt it, Wales were rusty coming into this but will improve. I back them to beat Aus with the NZ game being 50/50
8 Nov 2008, 20:15 pm
#5 Big Hit:
lol Rusty?
Hey we were fatigued and we still beat them – the convicts cannot claim fatugue though as an excuse when the Dragons beat them.
8 Nov 2008, 20:20 pm
#5 Big Hit: The aussie,s only need Giteau to be at his arrgonat best
8 Nov 2008, 20:49 pm
#5 Big Hit:
lol
Rusty??
International team these days should not be rusty or you are doing something wrong.
Enough of the excuses Big Hit.
8 Nov 2008, 20:50 pm
They dominated 65 minutes of the game, not the closing stages. PDV enforced his (lack of) gameplan and it showed. Spies should not have started that is clear. Missed telling tackles.
8 Nov 2008, 20:55 pm
#9 goyougoodthing2:
lol enforced lack of game plan
8 Nov 2008, 20:56 pm
referee was atrocious, blew penalty after penalty, only reffed one side of the breakdown, he is absolutely hopeless, the icing on the cake was not a yellow but a red card for fourie who contested the ball perfectly fairly. absolutely hopeless.
The boks intensity slacked off again and they nearly paid as per usual when the crowd got behind the welsh. Boks need some hunger injected at the breakdown, Brusouw in, Burger to 8, Rossouw in at 5 with Bakkies, Matfield out.
MOTM was deserved, andy powell was far better than Spies and Kankowski.
8 Nov 2008, 21:00 pm
as for bakkies big talk, all i saw was a couple of cheap shots from behind and the boks counter-rucked off several balls, i think we had 30% possession. terrbile. they simply don’t get it, they need to swarm their pack all over the ball, onder een kombers as the kenners say, for 80mins, not for the first 15.
8 Nov 2008, 21:00 pm
#10 Hurricane:
8 Nov 2008, 21:02 pm
#12 cab: Clearly not playing to their strengths. Can only get worse if they continue.
At least JDV got to sign his name in the air again. W@nker
8 Nov 2008, 21:16 pm
#6 RedBull (formerly RedLion): the Boks have just had an international season together, this is their first game. Its not an excuse, I just think Wales will eradicate their mistakes game by game.
8 Nov 2008, 21:28 pm
#14 goyougoodthing2:
the boks looked rusty, they started off well, but then last all of their shape, got to keep their foot on the pedal until they well clear.
9 Nov 2008, 09:48 am
To be honest I got the impression that the Boks were toying with them. At the beginning, the Boks came out blazing and scored a quick try. then they relaxed a bit.
Then Jean div scored again from the intercept, and they were just resting on their laurels. like they preferred to be defending…
When Wales came back to 15 points and the flurry of changes indiecated that the change was to be running rugby – indicated by Kanko not kicking, but running at the Welsh. The Boks seemed to lift their intensity at this point,. and I have no doubt they would have put a couple more tries in if Fourie had not been sent off (what a stupid decision by the ref!). After Fourie was sent off, they seemed to decide to just keep defending and hold out for a win.
This makes sense, since an overlap is unlikely, and any mistake will mean an instant overlap by the Welsh.
anyone read this the same?
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