Now he wants to see his side finish on a high at Parc Y Scarlets when the inaugural Autumn Nations Cup comes to an end with a game against Italy.
“I thought the boys rolled up their sleeves and acquitted themselves well. We asked for a lot of energy, we asked for a bit of passion,” said the Wales boss.
“We wanted to start well and I think we got that, after weathering the storm, with the break out try. We were probably a bit disappointed going in at half-time.
“The 11 points are probably ones with which we would argue the toss. Dan Biggar was tackled in the air and a try came from that.
“The TMO called in to say it was a tackle in the air, but the referee played on. I wasn’t happy with that and when we asked for him to have a look before the conversion was taken our captain was dismissed 20 metres away.
“That was disappointing, but if you take that aside I thought it was a reasonable first half to go into the changing room.
“England are ranked the second best team in the world and they came fully loaded, so we expected it to be a battle. We expected it to be tough going and it certainly was, but our boys brought energy and dug in there in both halves.
“I asked for a replication of the first half in the second half and we got a bit of momentum and some points in the second half. It’s just unfortunate that we weren’t able to pick up a try when we needed one.”
There was also frustration all round for the Welsh coaching team with Romain Poite’s interpretation of the scrum. Wales were hit hard in that area and conceded a string of penalties.
“Clearly the team that got the weight through the bind, which was England, was getting rewarded. For me, it’s pretty simple – if a prop loses his footing and goes down, then he’s caused the scrum to go down.
“That happened on a couple of occasions. Penalties could have gone either way, but six points came from that.
“There were a lot of resets and a lot of scrum penalties being awarded and in some cases, we think, wrongly so.
“With the pictures the referee was seeing he felt they were the dominant scrum, but on the engagement both teams are supposed to be square and stable. That wasn’t the case and we’d have liked the scrums to be reset or them free-kicked for doing that.”
After five games in the space of six weeks, Pivac has been able to learn a lot about his players and has blooded a number of youngsters. Shane Lewis-Hughes, Callum Sheedy, Kieran Hardy, Johnny Williams, Louis Rees-Zammit, Ioan Lloyd and Jim Botham have all earned their first caps.
That has helped to strengthen the depth of a squad that has been badly affected by injuries. Now all the coach wants to do is end on a high against Italy this weekend.
“We’re learning about the guys that are available, but there were five British & Irish Lions unavailable today and a number of other players that have been at the forefront of the minds of the selectors who were also unavailable,” added Pivac.
“It’s been a little bit frustrating, but there have been opportunities for some other guys and I don’t think any of them has looked out of place. There are a lot of learnings for a lot of young players that have had an opportunity.
“Talking to them in the changing room after the England game they were obviously disappointed, but still very excited to have been involved in a game like that. They all learned a lot.
“I might sound like a broken record, but we’re looking at this series as an opportunity to look at the depth of the squad going forward. If you look at the World Cup squad from 2019 to 2023, there would be a lot of guys in the age bracket of 33 to 38.
“We know that there will have to be change and some of that is happening at the moment. It is disappointing to have lost seven out of nine games, but what we’re looking at is are we improving, are we exposing players to this level and are we building depth.
“I thought they handled very well the intensity that England brought. Listening to Alun Wyn Jones speaking in the dressing room after the game, he believes that we’re heading in the right direction.
“The players believe that we’re starting to see the fruits of the labour of the work we’ve done in the last few weeks. Today it was about the defence operating with the amount of territory we had against us.
“All in all, to see an England side ranked second in the world, with the team they put out, taking shots at goal was a sign of respect for the way the boys played.”
