The Junior Dragons suffered a heartbreaking 26-25 defeat to Ireland at the Manchester City Academy Stadium after they had stormed into a 17-0 lead. Wales still managed to claim two bonus-points in defeat, after they scored four tries and lost by less than seven points.
Georgia are up next for Tom Phillips’ men before a crunch clash with New Zealand. And Strange reckons it’s still all to play for in Pool A.
He said: “We don’t know a great deal about Georgia but we’ll watch the game against New Zealand and do analysis. It’s a short turnaround so we need to look at freshening things up and getting boys in with a lot of energy because we need to deliver a good performance.
“To get two points from the game was a major plus, it will be more difficult now, but we have a fighting chance and we won’t be giving up on that. We’ll have to beat New Zealand and that is not impossible, we’ll be preparing for the next two games and we’ll be looking forward to the challenge.”
Wales came close to rescuing a victory on Tuesday night after Keelan Giles squeezed over at the corner for his second try. Jarrod Evans was off-target with the touchline conversion, meaning Ireland walked away victorious. But Strange reckons Wales have positives to build on before Saturday’s clash with Georgia.
He said: “To score four tries and lose is hard to accept, but there was lots of good in our game. We played really well with the ball in hand and there are lots of positives to take forward.
“Full credit to the players, they gave it everything until the final whistle and we could have snatched it. We got that try in the corner and it could have gone either way, it’s about fine margins at this level, and no-one would have complained if we had won it.”
