Wales went into the match at the Stadio Flaminio with a raft of changes following the defeat in Paris in round 3, and coach Gatland admitted there were moments of concern in Rome. He said: “There were times when I feared the number of changes was going to backfire. When you’re behind you go through different scenarios in your head and asked questions.
“Some individuals didn’t perform as we hoped and the number of changes did have an effect. But while we’re not entirely pleased with the performance, we’re more than happy to score two tries and get the win.
“We’ve shown consistency after clinching the title last year by winning three of our four games in this championship, but we haven’t shown the same consistency with our performance.”
But grinding out a five-point win thanks to a late Tom Shanklin try pleased the coach.” A lot of questions have been answered,” he said.
“A few combinations didn’t work and there were guys who hadn’t played for a while. But there was a gap between the performances of those on the pitch and the number one selection.
Galtand took the opportunity to field a different starting XV and believes the decision to rotate his first choice players will pay dividends in the build up to the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
He explained: “You don’t often get the chance to make changes and look at the depth of the squad. It would be easy to stick with the same team but then I would be criticised in two years’ time for not developing the squad.
“In the end we’ve had a chance to look at new people, we’re happy to win because that’s what Test rugby is about but the performance was not as pleasing.”
“The scrum struggled and conceded six points from two penalties. It didn’t give us a platform and was an area that put us under huge pressure.”
