Murray Kinsella reports from Twickenham
WALES COACH WARREN Gatland says he expected England to take a shot at goal when they won a late penalty at Twickenham in this evening’s magnificent World Cup Pool A clash.
With the Welsh leading 28-25 after a stunning second-half turnaround, England instead opted to kick to the corner and attempt to maul over for a winning try.
“I thought they would have gone for goal, taken the draw,” said Gatland post-match of that decision.
“It was a big call to make and a brave call to make. We had practiced, we had spoken about them in the past throwing to the front of the lineout and we expected that, stopped the driven maul and pushed them into touch.
You go there, get a driven lineout and win the game and you’re a hero. You make the wrong call and you’re a zero. It’s one of those things. We spoke about it, the coaches, and I said ‘I’d take the three points’. That’s what I would have done.”
The Welsh performance after the break was sublime overall, muscular, dogged, intelligent and utterly incisive despite the decimation of their starting backline due to injury.
Despite having major set-piece issues in the first half, leaving them 16-9 behind at the interval, Gatland felt a sense of calm in the Welsh dressing room.
“We struggled at scrum time to start the game and we felt a couple of decisions went against us,” said Gatland. “But at half time there wasn’t any panic in the group. We just had to sort a couple of things out.
“We changed the things we wanted to do tactically by attacking the 13 channel. The message at half time was, ‘We’re not out of this game. We’ve been here before and we’ve been down by eight or 10 points and come away with a win.’
“The pleasing thing for me was that we looked the stronger team in that last 10 or 15 minutes.
“That’s a testament to the hard work that has gone into this group of guys. The celebrations in the changing rooms were amazing and to think that we had two 10s in the backs, all the changes, and we coped with that. I’m incredibly proud of the boys and the performance.”
This Welsh success will go down in the country’s already storied rugby history of course, and Gatland said afterwards that it is one of the biggest achievements of his coaching career, particularly given its significance to Pool A in this tournament.
It’s up there as one of the biggest wins that I’ve ever been involved in,” said Gatland.
“There’s nothing bigger than the World Cup and we all know how this pool is at the moment. For us to come to Twickenham and win, I don’t think I’ve shown quite as much emotion in the final 80 minutes as I did today.
“It means a lot. It means a lot to me personally, it means a lot to the coaches and the players.”
