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Steve Tandy celebrated his first ‘away’ victory as Wales head coach, beating Fiji at the Cardiff City Stadium.
Here’s everything he had to say afterwards…
You must be pleased with that?
“Really proud of the boys. I thought the effort they showed. It wasn’t always perfect and you’ve got to give credit to Fiji, because they produced some magical stuff.
“I thought the way our boys kept going at it, chasing things down, not giving up, some of the goal-line defence was outstanding and our set-piece was excellent. Built on from the Six Nations.
“Dillon (Lewis) not being there for a while, obviously Rhys (Carre) coming back in, Ben Warren getting his first cap, I thought it’s really pleasing for us.”
How pleasing was the scramble defence against that Fiji side today?
“Scramble defence was good. Their offloads. I thought we probably had a couple of opportunities we should have probably done more with as well.
“Look, the fight in the group is outstanding. We spoke all week about Fiji having moments, probably more moments than we would like today, but that’s Test match rugby.
“There’s some quality players littered around Europe playing in big teams, they’ve got power, pace. But I love the fact that our boys kept climbing in and how we got to the back-end because I think we controlled a lot of the second half, which was pleasing.
You’ve got to be happy with six tries?
“Scoring six tries is outstanding for the boys and I love it when it comes from set-piece as well. It’s not exactly Fijian-style rugby.
“But it’s where we know tactically where we are going into the game. The way the players go about the plan is outstanding.
“The bench also is coming on and making a difference. We are getting confidence from putting people on, we know it’s going to kick on.”
Fitness-wise, you showed a hard edge today?
“The boys work hard. You won’t ask this group to work any harder every day.
“We’re always talking about how we accelerate faster and the large part of that is how we train.
“Credit to the boys too who are not involved as well. The boys who are not going to travel, the effort they put in before we jet off helps that.
“I speak about competition a lot. The more we can get competitive can only push us on to be the team we want to be.”
Will you have to consider changes to the team, given the travel demands going to Argentina?
“We’ll probably have one session in Argentina together. There’ll be separate flights over there. Then in South Africa, we might get two in. But again, it’s something that we’re looking at. I think we’re getting competitive so there are certain positions I think we can probably manage things because they are physical.
“We’ve seen the physicality today, and I think both teams… it’s unbelievable with how they put their bodies on the line. It’s something we are definitely looking at.”
Can you make further strides in the coming weeks?
“We’ll review, we’ll go back, we’ll enjoy this moment, because Test match rugby is tough. We’re going to savour the win, but we’ll be concentrating.
“We won’t be getting carried away with anything or looking on the outside, we’re going to keep looking in at how we can get better. How we can keep accelerating.
“We’re going to face two unbelievable Tests, with limited training, but it’s going to be a unique test for us. I know I probably bore you all with it, but it’s constantly looking inward, how do we keep getting better, the small wins.
“There was set-piece today. How can we grow our game from today to make it better for tomorrow and in Argentina?”
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