Wales must not be ‘chewed up’ by losing run

Men’s Six Nations: Wales v England

Venue: Principality Stadium, Cardiff Date: Saturday, 15 March Kick-off: 16: 45 GMT

Interim head coach Matt Sherratt says Wales can not fixate on breaking their record 16-game losing sequence after a 35-29 Six Nations defeat by Scotland.

The loss in Edinburgh was also a 10th consecutive Six Nations failure during a winless run that began in October 2023.

Wales launched a spirited Murrayfield comeback to claim two losing bonus points after Scotland had taken their foot of the pedal when leading 35-8 after an hour.

The stark reality now is Wales have now joined Italy as another tier-one team to have lost 16 successive internationals in the professional era.

England visit Cardiff next Saturday with Wales bidding to avoid losing all their matches for a second Six Nations tournament in a row.

“There’s no point hanging on to the past at all”, said Sherratt.

“It]the losing run] is not something I’m going to talk about, it’s there in the background.

” Everyone knows that, but if you start taking the pitch with desperation and anxiety and worrying where the next win comes from, it’s just going to chew you up.

Wales had run Ireland close in Sherratt’s first game in charge, but could not replicate that intensity in the opening exchanges against Scotland.

Gregor Townsend’s side ran in four tries before the break to lead by 20 points as they outclassed Wales.

“We knew two things were going to be important”, said Sherratt.

“They edged the contestable kicking game and their defence at the contact area was so good.

” That’s what happened in the first 40 minutes as we gave their back three some run ups and they are dangerous. “

Sherratt has insisted it was those technical problems rather than any emotional issues.

” The easy thing is to say there was a drop off emotionally, but I don’t think that was the case, “said Sherratt.

” They are a good Scotland team and we’ve got to remember that. They’ve been together a long time and we ran into them on a good day.

“There was no lack of passion out there. There was a hell of a lot of effort from our boys in that last 20 minutes.

” It was nice to get that four-try bonus point, but what was more pleasing was seeing the desperation of them defending our line.

Wales, who had scored in the first half through full-back Blair Murray, made the scoreline far more respectable with tries from Ben Thomas, Teddy Williams and Max Llewellyn as replacement fly-half Jarrod Evans helped orchestrate the second-half comeback.

Wales also had a late Taulupe Faletau try disallowed for Murray illegally hurdling a tackle in the build-up, a decision Sherratt described as “correct”.

“The game had run its course so when the bench came on it was pretty clear what we had to do”, said Sherratt.

“Ultimately the first 20 minutes was always going to dictate where the game went.

” It was a brave effort to come back and get two points, but I’ve seen enough of those games where the reality is they probably thought they’d done enough and dropped off 5%.

“The most pleasing thing was you could sense just before half-time, if we started chasing the game and getting unstructured, we’d hurt ourselves.

” There was an element of maturity in the second half where we weren’t reckless.

After they host Italy on Sunday, England will travel to Principality Stadium next Saturday for Sherratt’s final game in charge before he returns to Cardiff.

Gloucester-born Sherratt is looking forward to plotting the downfall of his fellow countrymen, who could still be in contention for the Six Nations title when they take the field in the Welsh capital.

“I can’t wait”, said Sherratt.

“Straight away after the game, the players said in the huddle that it’s not a week to lick your wounds for too long.

” There’s no greater challenge than England in Cardiff. I know it’s something the boys can’t wait for and personally for me, it should be a great occasion. “