Reaction: Wales survive scare against Canada
September 9, 2007

Win sets up Australia clash - Thomas

Gareth Thomas believes Wales' strong second half performance sets them up nicely for their next match against Australia.

Wales were sluggish in the first half of their opening Pool B match today against Canada and trailed 17-9 five minutes into the second half.

But their superior fitness and the quality of bench eventually proved the difference and they scored five tries in the final 30 minutes to seal a 42-17 success.

And Thomas believes they can go into Saturday's match against the beaten 2003 finalists in good heart.

The captain told ITV 4: "We set ourselves the objective of moving smoothly into the Australia game and the second half provided that.''

The Cardiff Blues favourite added: "I don't think we played to our full potential in the first half - but give credit to Canada, they probably deserved to lead at half-time.''

Llanelli scrum-half Dwayne Peel added: "We came here to win and it's objective achieved, I think.

"We were not as clinical in the first half as we'd have liked to have been but we spoke about finishing off half-chances at half-time and we did.''

Live Sports

Communication error please reload the page.

ABOUT COOKIES

To help make this website better, to improve and personalize your experience and for advertising purposes, are you happy to accept cookies and other technologies.

More Info Here Cookie Choices