Hmm letting in a try on half time when you've scored in the 38th minute wouldn't have been in the plans.
Mid-Year Tour : Japan
Match thread
Wales Test 2
Or could they.. Japan scores because of some soft defence around the fringes
Wales 21-10 at HT
Ours to lose
Like last week
By far the better team
Solid scrum
Functioning lineout
Still too many basic mistakes
Kicking very average again
Congrats @MiketheSnow @pooler-fan and the rest.
@KiwiMurph said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
Congrats @MiketheSnow @pooler-fan and the rest.
Great effort by the Welsh ferners to keep their faith in the dark times. Now enjoy your win.
@MiketheSnow said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
Thank god for that
Hardy and Edwards did their best to fuck that up
Don't be too hard on your team, Mike.
Don't forget you had all your Lions missing.
Phew,
At least a new coaching team can come in with a clean slate without that bloomin' horrendous loss record hanging over them like a dark cloud.
We don't have the players we once had but there are some nuggets that can develop given time.
We can only work with what we have, onwards and upwards 
If anyone wonders what it feels like to have the weight of a nation on your shoulders, I think Matt Sherratt’s face at the end of that game gives a pretty good indication.
Who’d want to be a coach, eh? That was an intense watch, even for a neutral like myself. Very happy for Wales to finally break their streak, you could tell what it meant for the players and the coaches.
Got to say how impressed I was again with Michael Leitch - what a warrior that guy is, to continue to perform at test level at 36 & in that heat and humidity.
The guy is a colossal figure, hugely impressive.
@Catogrande said in Mid-Year Tour : Japan v Wales Test 2:
Monkey off the back. Now have to back this up.
I hope so. Really don't like to see Wales in this place. Supporters deserve better
Well we avoided the ignominy of a Paul Hardcastle backed montage of misery from S4C,
'All those who remember the war
They won't forget what they've seen
Destruction of men in their prime...
I really wasn't sure what was going on
N-n-n-n-nineteen, nineteen'
Just!!!
Going in to the last quarter we were well on our way to another angler's 'one that got away' lament, but great energy, purpose and skill from the bench saw us bring an end to our 'horribilis duos annos'.
A much improved forwards performance both in the set piece and loose gave us the platform we so desperately needed to dictate the tempo of the match.
Add in the missing, injured, and untried and we have a very good foundation from which to improve.
The backs - despite scoring all of the tries - I'm not so sure of.
Costelow's omission definitely improved things but both Hardy and Edwards come from the same long line of farmers' sons shoveling shit for the most of the match and putting ourselves under unnecessary pressure and giving Japan a sniff of victory.
Add in poor kicking from hand and kicking when we should have passed and vice versa and these two are not the future.
We can do better, we have better.
I'm very much in the minority but I think Ben Thomas is our most talented and assured back and with 18 defeats on the bounce I would have given him far more opportunity to impose that talent on the Welsh game plan from the 10 position.
'But he doesn't play 10 for his club' come the screams. So what!
Whenever he steps on the field he's always close to being the best back for both Cardiff and Wales.
Get him to 10, put a hard running inside centre in the Jamie Roberts mold trucking it up and fixing defences, and our outside backs will be scoring tries left, right & centre much like the current Scottish backline.
Morgan-Williams looked to the manor born and leapfrogs Hardy as Tomos Williams' understudy.
Employ a young, innovative coach and watch this team flourish.
Yes we'll get hammered by both South Africa and New Zealand in the Autumn but we should be able to give Argentina a good game and look to defeat Japan again.
Onwards and upwards the World Rugby rankings.