Saturday 17 November 2012

Howley Horrified by Wales Display

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Wales interim head coach Rob Howley admitted the display in the 26-19 defeat by Samoa at the Millennium Stadium was not good enough.

The Six Nations champions were second best all night and showed no improvement from the reverse to Argentina last weekend.

Howley said: "I have spoken to the players and we are obviously disappointed as a coaching team and group of players.

"International rugby is about discipline and when we created opportunities in the game, although we did not have many, we were disappointed in terms of our top-three inches at times.

"We were outperformed by a Samoa side whose ability to keep the ball better than us was the most disappointing aspect of the performance.

"We did not have control of possession or in terms of the contact area and that is obviously not international standard."

Howley's injury crisis also deepened after the game with further injuries to hooker Richard Hibbard, fly-half Dan Biggar (both shoulder) and lock Ian Evans (knee).

Hibbard was felled by a crunching tackle from Taiasina Tu'ifua, in which the Newcastle No 8 did not appear to use his arms, and eventually forced off to have his arm put in a sling.

Biggar was on the end of a reckless challenge from Teofilo Paulo, in which the lock led with his head.

Howley said: "Dan and Richard have taken blows to their shoulders. It is not the time to discuss anything, but I don't think they were legal tackles as far as we are concerned having looked at the footage."


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