Wales must raise their game quickly with All Blacks up next
REACTION: Wales may have got their Nations Championship campaign back on track with victory over Japan, but coach Steve Tandy knows much tougher tests lie ahead.
The fifth-placed side face New Zealand in Cardiff next Saturday before taking on Australia on November 21, with Tandy both acknowledging that significant improvements will be needed to compete against the southern hemisphere heavyweights.
Wales remain fifth in the northern hemisphere table but face much tougher challenges this month.
New Zealand, fresh from defeating Scotland, are the visitors to Cardiff next Saturday before Australia play at the Principality Stadium on 21 November.
“If you look at the two Test matches, we did things today that weren’t good enough to compete in those games,” said Tandy.
“We’ll have to get a lot right next week and fix some stuff.”
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The coach said he was expecting more from his side this weekend.
“It’s good to start the campaign with a bonus-point win but I can’t run away from the performance when I talk about it,” said Tandy.
“There are elements of the performance we definitely need to improve. I thought we’d be better than that in some elements.
“There was good stuff from us, in terms of the line breaks and how we opened Japan up, but we weren’t ruthless enough.
“We’ll definitely have to do that for the next couple of games, but it helps to review after a win.”
“We have said: ‘we’re not accepting mediocrity anymore’,” captain Dewi Lake said after Josh Adams’ match-winning double.
“We’ve had enough time together to no longer be a team that’s building, improving. At some time, we have to put the foot down and say it’s not good enough. This is the campaign to do that.”
For Japan, the result represented another missed opportunity in a tournament in which Eddie Jones’ Brave Blossoms had managed just one win from four matches.
“That could have been a historic win for us,” Jones told reporters. “We weren’t quite good enough. It was a missed opportunity.”
Jones made five changes from the defeat to Fiji two weeks earlier, including handing flyhalf Riku Kitahara his Test debut. However, Japan could not make the most of their opportunities, despite tries from Ben Gunter and Warner Dearns keeping them in the contest.
Wales led three times during the opening half, with Griffin and Adams scoring before Japan responded. Rees-Zammit then crossed shortly before the break for his first Test try in a year.
Adams’ decisive score came after a superb break from deep by Blair Murray and a final pass from influential scrumhalf Tomos Williams, who had also created Griffin’s early try. The winger then showed his defensive worth in the closing seconds, winning a crucial turnover penalty to seal the victory.
Japan travel to England next Saturday, while Wales face the daunting challenge of the All Blacks. Lake’s message will be ringing in his team’s ears: mediocrity is no longer acceptable.
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