Wales' heartbreaking end to Rugby World Cup was a 'devastating result'

On Saturday, October 14, Wales faced Argentina in the quarter finals of the competition in Marseille after four wins from four group games in Pool C. Wales suffered a 29-17 defeat to Argentina to send them home.

Gareth with family and friends after the game (Image: PA)

Much of the start of the game focused on the state of Wales’ shirts after the numbers on the back were hanging off – or in the case of Newcastle Emlyn’s Gareth Davies completely missing – with a shirt change taking place at half time.

Gareth started quite sprightly in the game and put in a good shift before being replaced by Tomos Williams, as did fellow Newcastle Emlyn product Gareth Thomas at prop.

Wales led 10-0 after an early try from Dan Biggar which he also converted before adding a penalty. Argentina would respond in the first half with two penalties, with Wales leading 10-6 at the break. Early in the second half, Argentina converted another two penalties before a Tomos Williams solo try (and converted by Biggar) would put Wales 17-12 back in front but Wales couldn’t hold on as two tries from Joel Sclavi and Nicolas Sanchez, both converted by Emiliano Boffelli and a late penalty from Sanchez put Argentina clear of any possible Wales comeback.

Jac said: “We knew they were going to be a physical team, they always are. We just had to front-up against that, but discipline and a couple of errors let us down – it’s a devastating result.

“We let them into our half, and they capitalised on that. We let them have more possession and they got points out of it. I’m disappointed with the result but full credit to Argentina, they took their opportunities well.

“They’re always a physical team with a lot of X-factor players.”

Head coach Warren Gatland said: “Obviously we’re incredibly disappointed, but I don’t want to take anything away from Argentina in terms of their performance. They were a tough team to put away and they hung in there with the fight and kept going – it was an incredibly physical test match which really could have gone any way.

“They deserve a lot of credit for the way that they played today. For us, we weren’t quite at our best, but we had opportunities to win the game.

“It probably didn’t help with the referee getting injured, that was a little bit disruptive. We were 10-0 up and we gave away a couple of soft penalties.

“We spoke about how important discipline was and not giving them anything. That allowed them to stay in the game in terms of keeping the scoreboard ticking over and they took their opportunities – that’s just the way test match rugby goes sometimes.”