There will be a semi-final spot for the winners at the Oita Stadium and whichever teams reach the last four are guaranteed to play in either the Bronze Final or the World Cup Final. Twice before Wales have lost in the semi-finals, to New Zealand in 1987 and France in 2011 when Gatland was the coach, and the whole nation is hoping it can be third time lucky in 2019.
But before thoughts can switch to a semi-final Wales will have to overcome a French side that remained unbeaten in their pool campaign. They beat Argentina, USA and Tonga and were awarded a draw against England when their match fell victim to hurricane Hagabis.
While England topped the pool, and earned a quarter-final against Australia, Wales’ clean-sweep of their pool set-up a second match this year against the French. They were Wales’ first opponents of the year in the Guinness Six Nations in Paris, when Gatland predicted that if his side could win at Stade de France they would go on to win the Grand Slam.
Despite finding themselves trailing 16-0 at half-time, Wales stormed back into the game with two tries from George North to win 24-19 and set-up a third Grand Slam of the Gatland era.
“We’ve got a good record against France, but they’re traditionally a tournament team. In World Cups, when everyone writes them off, they seem to produce performances nobody expects,” explained Gatland.
“We know how hard it is going to be against them. They have some quality individuals and they seem to thrive when they reach the quarter-final and semi-final stages.
“It is going to be a tough, physical game and we’re looking forward to that challenge. We have seen them play better against the better sides.
“They are going to be tough, but obviously we have a good record against them in recent years and have tasted a lot of success. We cannot take that for granted because like us they are undefeated.
“They probably have a little advantage, not having had that game against England, so they may be a little bit fresher than we will be. But from our point of view we feel battle-hardened having come through four games – it is going to be a great game.”
There have been 13 games between Wales and France since Gatland took over as head coach in 2008, although he wasn’t in charge for the meetings in 2013 and 2017 because of British & Irish Lions commitments. The Welsh record over the 13 games shows an 8-5 success ratio.
In the matches in which Gatland was directly in charge, the record is 7-4 in Wales’ favour
“If we get things right, we know we can defend well and we are technically good in a lot of areas. We have created a lot of opportunities on attack, but need to be a little bit more clinical in finishing those chances,” he added.
“There were three of four opportunities against Uruguay that we didn’t take advantage of, with a forward pass or losing the ball over the try line.”
