Wales must finish in the top four positions of this year’s tournament to claim a coveted World Cup spot but after two rounds they are yet to win a game while Italy – Wales’ next opponents – have stolen a march on their rivals by upsetting France and beating Scotland yesterday to move ahead of Rhys Edwards side in the battle for direct qualification.
“Against Ireland we went into that match really well prepared and we were really unlucky not to come away with a win. With a couple of weeks now to prepare for the Italy game, I’m pretty hopeful we’ll go into the game against Italy in the same frame of mind, but this time come away with a win. And then it’s on to Scotland who we’ve got a good record against over the past few years. Ireland’s shock result against England also proves they are beatable as well so we haven’t lost hope yet.”
Wales struggled to overcome not only the French home crowd, but Italian referee Federica Guezoni as well. Wales were constantly pinged at the line-out, which was a strength against Ireland, and in the scrums where the Welsh pack were accused of early engagement on countless occasions.
Wales had three players – Lowri Harries, skipper Gemma Hallet and replacement scrum half Laura Prosser – sent to the sin bin to further hinder Wales’ cause.
“The final score-line sounds bad but we gave away a silly penalty inside the first two minutes from where they scored and then they went back downfield and scored again. We then made another couple of basic mistakes and they scored again so within 20 minutes we had gifted them 20 points,” said a bemused Edwards.
“But thereafter, especially in the early stages of the second half, they couldn’t live with us. They were a massive side and we held our own but when we lost two players to yellow cards, they scored again to give them a flattering score-line,” he added.
It proved to be the Jessy Tremouliere show in the first 20 minutes. She banged over a penalty before scoring two converted tries and adding another penalty to give France a comfortable 20-0 lead at the break.
Forward power paved the way for tries to props Lenaig Corson and Laetitia Salles to score just before the end.
The defeat was compounded for Wales with an ankle injury to influential flanker Sioned Harries which will keep her out for the rest of the campaign.
