Instead Wales will tackle Canada in the Bowl but if they show the form that produced a gutsy 12-10 win over the Africans, then a more prosperous day could be on the cards.
Wales were their own worst enemies in the opening game against England in the sweltering heat of Dubai. On four occasions they coughed up possession and on each occasion England made them pay by scoring tries of their opponent’s mistakes to record a 26-5 victory.
Jordan Williams scored a late try to prevent a whitewash but it was grim viewing for the plenty of Welsh fans in the stadium.
Things went from bad to worse in the second game of the day with Australia romping to a 43-0 victory. Wales were left chasing shadows as the slick Aussies cut loose to leave Wales shell-shocked.
With a quarter-final berth already beyond them for the final pool game against Kenya, Treharne led his side astutely from halfback, probing and teasing the dangerous Kenyans constantly with his jinking and jiving.
Sam Cross scored Wales’ first try following some good lead-up work by Angus O’Brien and when Willy Ambaka replied for Kenya, it appeared it was going to be another nervy few minutes for head coach Gareth Thomas.
But after deft handling set Ben Roach free, the free-wheeling forward powered his way to the try-line from halfway to give Wales a 12-15 lead at the break. Nelson Oyoo chipped ahead to win the race to the ball to bring Kenya within two points of Wales, but the men in red did enough to close the game out.
Thomas said Wales will put the two disappointing defeats behind them as they target a win against Canada in the Bowl tomorrow.
“We’ve just got to be very focused on our own game, we lost 26-5 to England first up today but even then we showed phases of our game which can work for us. We will regather and regroup after today’s games – it’s an early start in the morning but it is very much the focus on ourselves and do what we said we were going to do.
“We didn’t do that today, especially against Australia. We didn’t execute it as well as what we should have against England either,” he said.
“There is no pressure on the boys, they reacted against Kenya and controlled it for the main part of it and I thought they managed the last 90 seconds really well. And the workrate to defend at the end was superb, the boys just have to keep developing and that inexperience we have in the group at the moment will keep adding to it tournament on tournament.”
