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Hannah Jones' message ahead of England: 'We have nothing to lose, so let’s go for it'
By Gary Heatly
Wales captain Hannah Jones is excited about the potential of the squad going forward and has issued a rallying cry ahead of Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations match versus England, stating “we have nothing to lose, so let’s go for it”.
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The experienced Gloucester-Hartpury centre and her charges eventually lost out to Scotland 24-21 at the Hive Stadium in Edinburgh in round one of the showpiece event on Saturday and while ill-discipline and missed tackles ultimately hurt their cause, there were plenty of positives to take away from the performance.
They also earned a losing bonus point which could be important in the grand scheme of things as they look to improve on last year’s sixth placed finish while a number of young players stood up well while others made returns from injury.
Plenty for Jones and new head coach Sean Lynn to use as building blocks over the coming weeks, then.
“We were obviously gutted at the end having got things back to within three points and then not being able to go and get the win, but the effort the girls showed up in Edinburgh was outstanding,” Jones said as she looked back on the Scotland match.
“We only had a couple of training sessions together under Sean before that game, so if we can produce that kind of performance after little preparation then it excites me to think what we can do when we get full preparations for games under our belts – we are definitely going in the right direction.
“At the Hive we started with real energy against Scotland like we wanted to and then we went off the pace a bit. Going forward we want to grab hold of those good moments we had at the breakdown and play with real speed for longer parts of matches.
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“We know that we have the players in our 23 in our wider squad to play that type of game and hurt teams so we just have to keep working together. Now being in a proper full week of training ahead of round two will help us for sure as everything was happening pretty quickly last week.”
Round two sees tournament favourites England travelling to Cardiff for a mouthwatering clash, one made even more box office by the fact that it will be played in the Principality Stadium.
“The women’s game is just getting bigger and bigger and I want to thank everyone who travelled up to Scotland to watch us – now we cannot wait to play in front of a home crowd this coming weekend,” Jones added.
“The girls are all looking forward to playing at the Principality and we are all focused on putting in a performance to make everyone proud as the squad continues on this new journey.
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“In the coming days ahead of England we will be looking at first phase defence and making sure that we make our one-on-one challenges because they have a lot of dangerous runners.
“We have nothing to lose against England so let’s go for it.”
Meanwhile, there may have been some downsides to the performance versus Scotland, but head coach Lynn will only be accentuating the positives in the coming days at training as he gets the squad ready to face the biggest test in women’s rugby.
“The mindset I want the girls to have going forward is that everything will be a positive,” Lynn explained. “We will turn every negative that we see into a positive and, through that, we will grow and grow and grow.
“Yes, it wasn’t perfect against Scotland, of course, but we have only been together for a short while.
“I said to the team at half-time and at full-time up in Edinburgh that I can coach a lot of things, but I can’t coach hunger and desire and that willingness to fight for each other and they showed me and the other coaches that they have those qualities in abundance already.
“As a result, I am super positive as we move forward and I think we already have the basis of a squad that can go on and get better and better because we have a good blend of younger and more experienced players and they all want to play for each other and improve together.”
And, unsurprisingly, Lynn is excited about round two and pitting his wits against England head coach John Mitchell.
“It really doesn’t get better than Wales versus England at the Principality in front of a big crowd and we cannot wait for the game,” he said with a smile.
“Anyone who watched the Scotland game will have seen the girls playing with passion and with heart and they showed just how much it means to play for the badge and their country.
“Hopefully people were inspired by that and they will come along and cheer the team on this coming weekend.”