By Iestyn Thomas
Warren Gatland was frustrated with the manner of Wales’ 24-19 defeat to Fiji in the first of three Autumn Nations Series Tests, resulting in a record-equalling 10th consecutive Test defeat.
Wales led 14-3 after a try for debutant Blair Murray and a penalty try, but slipped to a first home defeat to the Fijians with fly-half Caleb Muntz scoring 19 points, which included a try and 14 points off the boot.
Gatland was asked where the win for the national side was going to come from.
He said: “Well, hopefully next week, because it was supposed to be today.
“I’ve been around for long enough to understand that Test match rugby is about performing, about winning, but trying to take a little bit of pressure off this group of players to give them that confidence to go and be accurate and play.
“We’re just frustrated really. We tried to be positive in the way that we played and we showed glimpses of that in terms of the way we started, we should have been 20 points up.
“We’ll put our hand up and say some things we need to be better at, but I thought we were pretty unlucky with a couple of calls against us as well.
“But knowing what Fiji are like, they hang in the game and throw the ball around and they get excited by those sorts of things.
“There’s a number of positives and speaking in the changing rooms we should be disappointed.
“But the boys have worked hard over the last couple of weeks and we’ve got to get back on the horse on Tuesday and tidy up some of the things that are going to help improve us.”
With Wales levelling their worst losing run from 2002/3, Gatland still believes he and his charges are on the right path.
“The pressure comes externally. It comes basically from the media, because that’s a narrative that you create,” he added.
“And that’s okay from where I sit.
“We’ve said for the last 12 months since the World Cup, in terms of the number of players and the experience that we’ve lost since then, that we were going to invest in a group of youngsters that we felt that we could build with and who would take us on.”
His side were hampered by an early injury to wing Mason Grady as Wales were limited in back options after opting for a 6/2 bench split. Gatland mentioned how the wing position was mentioned as being exposed.
“We talked about one position where we were potentially a little bit exposed could be on the wing, and we lose Mason pretty early in the game,” he said.
“So it was a little bit tough for us and difficult for Sam to have to go on there and cover us for quite a length of the game.