Wayne Pivac believes Wales' players are still behind him despite the shock defeat to Georgia last weekend.
Defeat to the Lelos in Cardiff, just months after a similarly torrid home defeat to Italy in March, has raised questions about whether Pivac has the backing of his players amid serious doubts over his future as Wales coach. Speaking after the match on Amazon Prime, former Wales captain Sam Warburton questioned whether there were some "kind of deeper, underlying issues" in the camp.
Wales failed to register a point beyond the 24th minute, with many left scratching their heads at how Wales, heavy favourites for the clash, had failed to even throw a punch, let alone land one, for much of the match. Despite that fact, and Warburton's comments, Pivac still believes the players are backing him, citing the reaction in training this week.
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“It’s a good question," he said. "We are always mindful of body language. We look at things which are very important. If I felt that was the case, then it would be a discussion to have but the reaction of the players this week has been nothing but faultless.
“Guys like Dan Biggar, Alun Wyn, who have been around a very long time, speaking around we’ve been in this situation before, and we know what we have to do. We’ve got to roll our sleeves up and go again. That’s certainly been the attitude of the players to my knowledge in terms of the training sessions and the team meetings we are a part of.”
Understandably, after a defeat like last week's, criticism has been rife in the Welsh game. Former Wales centre Jamie Roberts admitted questions would have to be asked of Pivac, while Warburton has been vocal in his criticism of many facets of the game beyond just the men's national side.
Another former captain, Gwyn Jones, claimed Pivac was "out of his depth", while former Wales and Lions legend Graham Price called on his entire coaching ticket to go.
However, despite the growing discontent reaching fever pitch this week, Pivac insists he takes little notice of what is being said by those outside of camp, claiming that external critics don't possess all the facts.
“Well, it is white noise because I’ve got Verity [Wales' media officer] here who gives me a bit of a trend of what’s happening out there, but I don’t look at it myself!" he said. “I don’t see what good that’s going to do to anyone. It goes with the territory.
“As I said earlier if I was on the outside without having all the facts but seeing this team play then I’d be critical of some of the rugby we’ve been playing. There’s no doubt about that.
“We want to get better, and I can tell you that the group of players that are there are working very, very hard. This week was a classic week of backs to the wall, and we want to rectify last week's performance and to a player they rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in.
“We did some live contact today [Thursday] even though we are down numbers but we had about five young fellas in to help out, but they threw themselves into it. The guys are really determined to finish off on a good note to give something back to the public who they feel, and we feel collectively as a group, that we let down last week, obviously.”
He also said he has rarely been able to put out the side he would like to select over the course of his three years in charge due to injuries. But he insisted that eight weeks of preparation before next year's World Cup would be an important factor for his side.
"Going forward, it is understanding there is a World Cup around the corner and we will have eight weeks together to put together the things we want to do over an 80-minute game," he said. "Internally, probably the most frustrating thing is that we haven't probably had the side we want to put out there in three years. It's no-one's fault, it is just the way it happens and maybe the way rugby is going with how physical the game is you can't guarantee your starting line-up from week to week."
When asked what it was that those outside the camp weren't seeing, he added: "If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know a lot of the facts yourself because you’ll know who the rugby players are in Wales and you probably have a ranking system and you’d work out who the ones are that you’d like to select. We haven’t had the ability to do that on every occasion but that’s just one part of the puzzle.
"From our point of view, it’s really making sure that everything we do we’re very very consistent. At the moment it’s making sure that we play within the laws of the game on a regular basis over the 80 minutes and don’t give away cheap ins which we’ve been doing. It’s something we talk about and something we’re working on.
"There’s a lot of things we talk about which will stay in-house because we don’t need to be telling the opposition what we’re thinking and doing with a Rugby World Cup just around the corner.
"I honestly believe that, with eight weeks together, we will improve a hell of a lot in the areas we need to. And for that peak performance we’re looking for we have to get it right technically and tactically, strength and conditioning-wise we need to be at the peak of our powers and we need to be mentally resilient. When we get those three things working, we’ve shown what we can do but not consistently enough. And I don’t shy away from that fact."
Read next:
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