Henry admits Wales are poor
November 10, 2001

Wales coach Graham Henry offered no excuses for his side's 30-16 defeat by Argentina in a no thrills encounter at the Millennium Stadium this afternoon and admitted: "We're not very good really."

It was an abject Welsh performance with Henry's men comprehensively outplayed by the Pumas who had Bristol fly-half Felipe Contepomi to thank for the comfortable nature of their victory.

He finished the match with 25 points, a tally which included a try and he out-shone his opposite number Iestyn Harris who was the focus of attention before the game.

"We're not very good really," Henry said. "We have to pull together the group of people and work as hard as we can to put it right. There is no other solution.

"I think we've selected the right people - we haven't really got that many options.

"We need some momentum, some urgency. We seem to be flat mentally and I don't know why. It's something that's hard to put a finger on."

Henry refused to criticise debutant Harris whose wayward kicking led to both of Argentina's tries and insisted this match was not too early to throw him into the international arena.

"We've got to start somewhere with Iestyn. It wasn't the most positive display but he will get better - he's a very natural rugby player. With him we had to go backwards before we could go forwards."

Henry admitted he had sympathy with Welsh fans who booed their side from the pitch at the final whistle.

"People have a right to be disappointed. You go through troughs occasionally and we're going through one now. We don't go out there to play badly, we go out their to produce, but we didn't do that today."

Harris was clearly distraught by his debut and did not want to talk about it afterwards.

"I'm hugely disappointed," he said through a Welsh media official.

Delighted Argentinian scrum-half Agustin Pichot said it would take Harris time to learn the union game.

"I'm not saying that Harris is not ready for union, but you need to be playing in the game much longer.

"Union is a very simple game but very strategic and that is only something you can learn and you breath it since you are a young boy.

"We wanted to put a stamp down today as a team and we have done that.

"We have proved that we can play rugby and that we can win outside of Argentina and this is a great platform for us now for the future."

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