Warren Gatland’s side made it a maximum 10 points from their back-to-back wins over Fiji and Portugal thanks to a last gasp try from Taulupe Faletau in Nice. The following day the Fijians followed up their 32-26 defeat to Wales with a sensational 22-15 win over the Wallabies.
It means that after two rounds, Wales are top with 10 points and both Fiji and Australia are behind them on six. Wale have also scored the most tries and points to date in their Pool with 8 and 60.
Having made 13 changes to his starting XV for the game in Nice, Gatland was forced into a last-minute alteration in the back row when Tommy Reffell pulled up in the warm-up. That meant Jac Morgan came into the side for his second game.
“Tommy said his calf was a bit tight. He was keen to take to the field, but if he had pulled that calf that would have been his World Cup over,” said Gatland.
“I thought Jac, with very little preparation this week, was good. We’re happy with the bonus point and in the dressing room I just said to the players that’s ‘job done.
“We tried to play too much rugby early on and didn’t play more direct. Some of those players hadn’t had a lot of rugby and it wasn’t pretty. A few guys looked a bit rusty having not played together for a little while, but we’ll take the ‘W’ and move on.”
“People had an opportunity to put their hand up so we’ll review that and see which guys did perform well. I thought Rio Dyer looked sharp on the wing, really happy with his aerial stuff.
“The lineout didn’t function as well as I would have liked, and we were a bit lateral at times. When we ran hard and won the collisions, we looked dangerous, and we looked comfortable.
“In fairness to Portugal they put us under pressure, and they moved the ball. I was impressed with them.”
Next up for Wales are the wounded Wallabies, who have never lost two pool games in their history and have always made the knock-out stages. Their only previous defeats in the pool stage had come against Wales (29-25) in Japan four years ago, against Ireland 15-6) in 2011 and South Africa in 1995 (27-18).
Faletau’s fourth and final try off the base of the final scrum of the game provided Gatland with the perfect gift to help him celebrate his 60th birthday the following day and means Wales can now go into their crunch game against the Wallabies with everything to play for.
“It’s good that we’ve given nearly everyone in the squad some rugby. Now we can start looking forward to Australia,” added Gatland.
“It’s not easy sitting in the box, it’s a bit stressful. At half-time we had kind of done that job of taking their feet away.
“They had thrown everything at us in the first half, and they didn’t have the same opportunities in the second half. We were conscious of how important it was to get that bonus point at the end.
“I thought Portugal showed a lot of enterprise and you could argue Uruguay were a bit unlucky against France. It’s brilliant for the game.
“It’s important that we continue to develop these tier-two nations and maybe we might be able to increase the number of teams in the World Cup to 24. You don’t want top-tier nations dominating, you want upsets – as long as I’m not a part of it!”
Scrum half Tomos Williams won his 50th cap, but it was No 8 Faletau who stole the headlines with two moments of magic deep into the game. The first was when he pulled off a magnificent cover tackle to save a try, and then he picked up a stormed over from a scrum to bag the bonus-point in the last play of the game.
“The more game time he has, the better he gets. I thought he did some really good things today and he’ll get better with more rugby fitness,” said Gatland.
“He has worked hard. He made some good decisions in terms of that tackle, and then that try at the end of the game.”
