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  • 5 hours ago
The Wales rugby team attack coach Matt Sherratt has been speaking to the media ahead of the opening Nations Championship clash against Fiji at Cardiff City Stadium.
Transcript
00:00Obviously some of the English-based players come in a little bit later and with the nature of having the
00:06Barbarians game only really had like a week, three or four sessions to show what they had.
00:12So what we've tried to do is look more big picture, so it's not just about the now, it's not
00:17about just the next three weeks coming, it's about the autumn, the six nations and then ultimately 2027.
00:24So that was made pretty clear to the players in terms of, you know, don't get absolutely fixated on the
00:31next three weeks.
00:32We want to see you if we haven't seen you before, get you involved in the squad and it just
00:38makes the next time they come in a lot smoother.
00:40So, yeah, some tough decisions, but a little bit tough of the English-based players because obviously we hadn't seen
00:47enough of them really.
00:48Kick strategy, we do really as a coaching group, Steve has a look at that obviously and myself, Danny and
00:55Murch will have input on that.
00:57Pens at the moment is more, he will give obviously, say our full backs, he's got a lot of experience
01:02being in the backfield and covering space.
01:05So he'll add value to that, but mainly the technical side of kicking and especially the goal kickers.
01:11The Barbarians game was good practice in terms of there's an air of unpredictability around how the Barbar's played and
01:17obviously Fiji are a team that their transitional stuff is a massive weapon.
01:22I think statistically best in the world transition-wise in terms of when they receive a kick or turnover attack,
01:31they've got so many good athletes.
01:32So it's about trying to control that. The game will break into that occasionally because that's how the game is
01:38at the moment.
01:39So we're going to have to be pretty structured with how we kick and try and really put a game
01:47that Wales need on the field rather than something that's too loose.
01:51I think there's going to be a lot more rotation. As an example, I think we get to Argentina on
01:58Monday.
01:59So we travel Sunday, get there Monday is obviously a little bit of a time difference in a 13-hour
02:04travel.
02:05So it's probably a little bit more difficult to recover for some players.
02:08But I think obviously we do want to have a look at the wider squad as well.
02:13There might be a few players who roll through, but there will be more rotation than usual, I'd predict.
02:21We did a lot of work over the Six Nations on our discipline.
02:25And listen, when you look at the games, it's always obviously you look at set-piece, attack, defence.
02:31But our discipline improving during the Six Nations was it had a huge effect on the upturn in our performances.
02:38So it enables you to put pressure on the opposition in terms of we had a lot more 22 entries
02:44because I think in the last three games,
02:47our penalty count was lower than the oppositions.
02:50And you could probably see that steady improvement.
02:53And that's where most yellow cards come from is infringements in your 22.
02:57So discipline's like a constant for us.
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