France prove too strong for the Welsh

By Mark Stevens
03/07/21

Wales head coach Ioan Cunningham has stressed the importance of his players learning from their mistakes after his side lost 36-19 to France in the U20 Six Nations.

Exeter Chifs quartet Oli Burrows, Daffyd Jenkins, Christ Tshiunza and Dan John all started for the Welsh, who have now lost back to back games and face the so far unbeaten England at the Arms Park on Wednesday.

Full-back Jacob Beetham scored two of the home side's three tries, whilst the other went to replacement Morgan Richards. Will Reed and Sam Costelow landed a conversion apiece, but it was never enough against an impressive French outfit.

“Frustration again, if I’m honest, especially in that first half I felt we gifted France 24 points,” said Cunningham after he match. “It’s important we learn quickly from these things, we focused on starting the game strongly this week but we didn’t quite nail that.

“We showed glimpses at the end of the second half when we scored those two tries but we left too much for us to do.”

The former Scarlets coach wants his team to improve in the line-out as well as increasing their share of possession.

“We spoke about winning the halfway line battle and putting the pressure back on our opponents more.

“Also, a line-out that looks good is when all the pieces come together, there were some communication and skill errors and also we were not reacting quickly enough to the changing picture of a line-out,” added Cunningham.

“it’s important for us to again learn from this and maybe simplify things going forward, this may help us to get some more possession in key areas. It’s the learning that’s important, hopefully, a few of these guys will learn quickly and progress in the game.

Cunningham was quick to praise France and thought Wales’ two yellow cards made their task even harder.

“They spotted our weakness and when you have two yellow cards in a game it’s very difficult to stay in it, once again discipline is the word that keeps coming up, we must change this quickly.

“We now need to dust ourselves down, get smiles back on faces and focus on what will be a huge challenge against England.

“I thought we showed what we can do, we played some nice phases in patches but our final pass wasn’t sticking, if we can improve that we will score many more points.”