WAL 43-19 GEO: Wales reaction (Reffell, captain Lake, head coach Gatland, Costelow, Rees-Zammit, Rowlands)
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Reaction from Wales' Mastercard Player of the Match Tommy Reffell, captain Dewi Lake, head coach Warren Gatland, fly-half Sam Costelow, winger Louis Rees-Zammit and second-row Will Rowlands following their 43-19 win against Georgia in Pool C at Stade de la Beaujoire on Saturday, 7 October.
Louis Rees-Zammit, winger
On scoring a hat-trick:
"I’m happy to score, happy to score a hat-trick. But the most important thing is the result and getting the five points. It’s my first hat-trick for Wales as well, it's great to do it in a World Cup. We’re absolutely buzzing with the result, it builds a nice momentum heading into the quarter-finals."
On proving his speed:
"I am trying to run as quick as I can. But I’m just trying to help the team in whatever department that is, whether scoring or assisting, my aerial game, defence. I just want to help the team."
On who he would prefer to play in the quarter-finals:
"Argentina have got a good kicking game and they are a threat on the ball. With Japan, they love transition, they love running with the ball and creating chaos in the transition moments. They are both going to be tough opponents, but we’ll prepare as well as we can and get the job done next week.
"We are building nice momentum. We’re getting the job done and really looking forward to the quarter-finals."
On taking his Rugby World Cup 2023 try tally to five, second on the top try-scorers' list so far:
"It would be good to get top try-scorer. That is a goal of mine, but as long as we keep winning these games that’s all that matters. As long as I’m helping the team, that’s what counts.”
On being frustrated that he has not had enough ball in his hand:
"I haven’t had much ball in hand. When I do get it, I need to create something. Thankfully I got the hat-trick and I got an assist. That’s great."
Sam Costelow, fly-half
On the win:
"Georgia are a tough team to beat. They were strong and we did really well to get the tries and the result. They were top quality. We got the job done."
On when he knew was replacing Gareth Anscombe:
"About halfway through the warm-up so it was pretty late. But a lot of the senior boys were so good to me and just said, 'Go out there and do the job and everything else will take care of itself'. I am just so grateful I had those boys around me."
On scoring 13 points on first Rugby World Cup start and if it could not have gone much better:
"I’m still learning, but a great opportunity for me this was. It’s brilliant."
On who he would prefer to play in the quarter-final:
"We’ll watch the Japan v Argentina game tomorrow together. Then we’ll prepare like we would for any other team."
On critics saying before Rugby World Cup 2023 that Wales would not qualify from group:
"As a team we know where we are and how we want to get better. We have just got to keep doing. What we’re doing and keep improving."
On having more game-time with Anscombe injury doubts:
"I don’t know what’s happened with Gareth. Hopefully he’ll be OK, but we’ll just see how it comes."
Will Rowlands, second row
"But we doubled down on what we were doing, sharpened up a bit. Credit to the guys for doing that. It was quite comfortable in the end."
On what has changed with Wales since the Six Nations to reach Rugby World Cup 2023 quarter-finals with four wins:
"There’s been a lot of confidence in the squad about what we want to do. A clear message from the coaches. We train well during the week and try and deliver then on the weekend. We’re just playing to our strengths and the results have been spot on for us so far.
"The performances can get better. But we’re just excited now to kick on and get to the real meat of the competition next weekend."
On who he would prefer to play in the quarter-finals:
"I’ve never played Japan, though I’ve played against Argentina a few times. Both are dangerous teams in their own right. We’ll be watching that game tomorrow with interest. Let’s see who we've got."
On the pace of Louis Rees-Zammit:
"Give the ball to Zammo in a bit of space and you can almost stop running. Just let him run it in. He’s electric and great to have him in the side.
"Zammo has probably been a bit frustrated the last few weeks with not getting the ball enough but he was great. If we can get the ball to him more then we know he’ll score more tries."
On what players thought when Wales were being written off as Rugby World Cup 2023 hopefuls:
"We were confident that if we played the right game plan, got the right players going in the right direction, then we knew we could beat other teams. We have proved that.
"That Fiji game was tough, they played really well and put us under a lot of pressure. But we got the result and we’ve played better and better since then."
On the feeling being in Rugby World Cup 2023 quarter-finals:
"It feels really exciting. We want to keep going in the tournament. For us, it was the minimum standard to get to that stage. Now we’re all really excited about next week."
MEDIA CONFERENCE
Warren Gatland, head coach
On injuries to Taulupe Faletau and Gareth Anscombe:
"Toby’s (Faletau) broken his arm, so he will be out. We’re going to assess Gareth over the next 72 hours. He’s pulled his groin very high up.
"Talking to the medics, he’s got a bit of power still in his leg which is a positive, it means it hasn’t fully come off the bone. We’ll probably know in the next 48-72 hours in terms of what we need to do with him, whether we have got time for him to recover or whether we need to make a replacement.
"We’ve got to look at a replacement for Faletau, whether that is directly as a loose-forward replacement or whether we look at another position. We’ve got a few sore players, particularly in the backs, after today’s game.
"If you do see Liam Williams on crutches, it’s not that he’s done anything significantly bad, he got a whack on the knee and the medics have, from a comfort perspective, just put him on some crutches.
"He probably won’t take a huge part in training in the early part of next week but hopefully he’ll be fit for the quarter-final."
On the loss of Faletau:
"We felt that he was starting to come back to his best. He was excellent last week in terms of his footwork and carrying and stuff, taking kick-offs and giving us some go-forward as well.
"It's a big loss for us. We’ll just have to make a decision in terms of how we look at the balance of the back row going forward and in particular for next week."
On Louis Rees-Zammit:
"I’d like to see him with a little bit more ball in hand and having a bit of a crack.
"You see the pace he’s got and he’s very skilful for that kick-and-chase. He’s still a player with a huge amount of potential in terms of the amount of growth he’s got going forward. He’s still young, we think he can get better and better."
Dewi Lake, captain
On who they would rather face between Japan and Argentina:
"We’ll watch the game tomorrow but there’s no team we’d rather play against or wouldn’t rather play against. Both teams are playing some great rugby in this tournament.
"Since Japan shocked the world beating South Africa a couple of World Cups ago, they’ve just developed and developed as a rugby country.
"They’re very proud to play for their country and you can see that, it’s evident in the rugby that they play - that never-say-die attitude. But there’s no preferred team for us to play, whoever it is that we play against we’ll prepare well for that game."
On Louis Rees-Zammit:
"Sometimes you look at him and it doesn’t look like he’s putting any effort in running. I think when I try run that quick it doesn’t look as smooth or silky.
"He’s always been a very dangerous attacking player, we’ve seen that through a number of years, but the way he gets at the end of kicks and his effort-based work in terms of chasing kicks and wanting to be the first player to the ball, has been huge for us and it paid dividends for us today with his hat-trick. He impressed a lot of people today."
ON-FIELD REACTION
Tommy Reffell, Mastercard Player of the Match
On how heis feeling post match:
"Sore after that one. We knew what to expect with Georgia, they had that win against us at the Principality Stadium in the last year, so we knew what they were going to bring with that physicality. We really had to up it today, scrum, maul. We also knew they could play out the back a lot better than what they showed. So they had threats all over the park and it was up to us to shut them down."
On his performance:
"That's rugby [being ruled out against Portugal before the match]. Fair play to the boys and my team-mates, they saw I was down after the Portugal match. They have got around me, they picked me up. I supported them, they put in a hell of a shift against Australia and Portugal, which kept the momentum going into this game as well."
Dewi Lake, captain
On the match:
"We spoke in the week about being quite ruthless. Dropped off a bit at the end of the first half and the start of the second half, Georgia came back at us. We spoke about them being a proud nation, they were never going to go away quietly. We picked it up in the final 20 and we scored some nice tries and played some nice rugby. I think definitely a work-on for the middle 20 minutes, not having that drop-off in energy, when we've got team on the ropes, to keep them there."
On Sam Costelow:
"Gutted for Gareth [Anscombe]. He has battled well with injuries but for Costelow to step in and play the way he did, we have got a good pool of players in every position. We all support each other but for him to step in at short notice and play like he did shows the depth we've got in this squad."
On the guard of honour for Georgia:
"That is something that is quite well known in rugby, from grass roots all the way up. Just respect through the game, everyone puts their body on the line for their country so just to sign the game off and give each other that respect at the end."
Warren Gatland, head coach
On the match:
"It wasn't pretty but we got the job done."
On the side turning their performances around:
"They have worked incredibly hard in the off-season building up to this World Cup. You get a lot of confidence from the work you put in and it was a great atmosphere within the group. Probably struggled a bit today, Georgia aren't a bad side. They put us under pressure but we got the job done and we can now focus on next week."
On Gareth Anscombe, who pulled up injured pre-match:
"He just got a bit of a tight groin, high on the groin, maybe just a little tweak so we will have to get that checked out. We're not sure about that yet."
On Dan Biggar:
"We did talk about bringing Dan on but he was under a bit of an injury cloud as well so it was good for young Sam Costelow to play 80 minutes and get through that and thrown in the deep end right at the start of the game. We're pleased for him to get a run too."
