Wales began their Summer Test series on the losing side of the score-line this past Saturday, as South Africa ran out a 41-13 win at Twickenham Stadium. Despite a solid first half performance from Warren Gatland’s side, the Springboks took control of the match in the latter stages with three unanswered tries.
After the match, Wales head coach Warren Gatland and his selected captain for the match Dewi Lake spoke to the media. There was plenty to discuss, with hooker Sam Parry’s voluntary exit from the Wales squad firmly at the forefront of the conversation.
Gatland and Lake discussed Parry’s withdrawal, as well as how they are looking to improve as a squad, before their two test series against the Wallabies next month. Here are the top five talking points from the Wales post match press conference, following the defeat to South Africa at Twickenham.
1. Gatland addresses Sam Parry’s exit from the Wales camp ahead of Australia tour
Of course, we begin with the top story to come out of the weekend, as Ospreys hooker Sam Parry volentarily stepped away from the Wales squad. After learning that he will take a supportive role behind Dewi Lake and Elliot Dee in the hooker ranks, Parry quit the squad and will not be travelling to Australia for the two match test series.
WARREN GATLAND: “He left on Monday. I was surprised he left the squad. He didn’t talk to me. You need to talk to Sam, he hasn’t spoken to anyone. I understand his agent has been pretty vocal which is a little bit disappointing. When Sam came in the week before I was straight up with him, told him the situation he was in with the squad.
“We put a (news) release out to all the players that we had picked 37 and would only take 34 on tour and just wanted to be straight up, as a player I would want to know where I actually stood. I said that he was initially covering for Elliot [Dee] with the injury, so I was clear on that. I said I don’t want to stuff you around, you’ve been brilliant for us when you have come in in the past, just see what happens with that. So I’m not sure how I was disrespecting him there.
“I talked to him on Monday about the competition in the squad, I thought there was some real competition with the hookers. I didn’t mention him by name but I didn’t want to leave Sam out. If I’ve upset him there was no intention, I just would have rather he had come and see me and said the way he felt. It was definitely nothing from me in terms of trying to disrespect him, I just wanted to be honest and upfront with him.
“And I think that would have been a better approach had he come and said that rather than just walking off, really. I suppose you understand that people take things a little bit differently and you just have to deal with it. Whether he’s had any regrets, I know he’s good friends with Gareth Thomas and Gareth contacted him straight away and said ‘look, just get on the phone’.
In the future, yeah. I don’t think we would close a door on a player.
“Whether he has any regrets, sometimes people make impulsive decisions, players as well. I’m the first person to be able to forgive someone in terms of putting their hand up and not getting everything right, making mistakes. You have to have some compassion if it was impulsive. Considering the next day Elliot pulled out with an injury, Sam would have been on the plane. So whether he has any regrets about it I’m not too sure.”
2. Gatland left ‘frustrated’ by the match officials as pass for Springboks try “looked a bit forward“
There were plenty of cards issued in the match, with Wales and South Africa both having their players sent to the sin bin. Wales dropped down to 13 men at one stage, as Rio Dyer and Aaron Wainwright’s time on the side-lines overlapped by a few minutes. Springboks fullback Aphelele Fassi was also shown a yellow card, after his boot connected with Taine Plumtree’s face following a jumping catch. Gatland addressed the offences, and was frustrated by some of the decisions made by the match officials at Twickenham.
WARREN GATLAND: [The pass for Mapimpi’s try] Looked a bit forward to me in terms of the hands. I thought the penalty against Taine Plumtree, he’s made a tackle and rolled east to west and it’s a penalty against us. I’d question the little kick at the end of the game where the referee has said he’s trying to catch the ball, if you’re trying to catch the ball you do that with two hands. Those were the little things that were a bit frustrating from our point of view, considering we had to deal with yellow cards.
“But, you see that and when you’ve got the world champions in front of you sometimes they tend to get a couple of calls their way. We just have to deal with that and focus on ourselves, be as accurate as we can possibly be.
“The yellow card for Aaron Wainwright, from where we’re looking I can’t see where he touched the maul. So, that’s ended up being a penalty try. I couldn’t quite see the difference between the try that was disallowed for us, they looked to me to be very similar situations.”