Rob Howley happy with his players – Rugby News Update
Rob Howley, the 41-year-old former Wales scrum-half and current interim coach of Wales, has stated that he is proud of his players, even though they were clean swept by the Wallabies.
Howley was appointed the interim coach of Wales for the tour of Australia, as permanent coach Warren Gatland unable to travel with the team due to an injury. In his absence the Wales team lost all three matches, but ran the Wallabies close in all the games.
The visitors lost the opening game convincingly but the hosts only managed last minute wins at Melbourne and Sydney. Wales went to Australia on the back of winning the 2012 Six Nations Grand Slam, and were hoping for a test series victory. The Welsh had
not defeated the Wallabies on their own turf for 43 years, and that jinx could not be broken on this tour either.
Howley said, "The respect we have had over here has been great, but this Welsh team is better than that. We want to win international games and the one thing you need to do when you gain respect is come to places like Australia and win."
He gave credit to his players by saying, "I am immensely proud of this group of players and there are a lot of good ingredients that have come out of the last three weeks that should make them feel pretty proud of their efforts."
The former scrum-half believes that the players need to learn from the mistakes, and will get further opportunities to make amends, especially during the autumn fixtures, and then the Six Nations. It is an important learning curve for the players, and many
of his players had not been part of a test match series prior to this tour.
Wales lost the last two matches in the final 10 minutes, and players should learn that it is important to concentrate for the whole game.
However, Gatland will be back to take charge of Wales, and this experience will help his team improve in the future.
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