By Paul Jones
Rio Dyer wants Wales to come out of their shell much earlier against England this weekend, when Wales head to Twickenham for round two of the Guinness Six Nations.
The Dragons wing was one of Wales’ four tryscorers as they picked up two points from their agonising 27-26 defeat to Scotland at the Principality Stadium – his fifth Test try in 15 internationals.
“It was a bit frustrating in the first half because I wasn’t really touching the ball. We were kicking it a bit too much,” said Dyer.
“It showed in the second half that when we do start chucking it about and playing, that we can perform.
“We were in our shell in the first half. We were hitting up and were put on the back foot.
“Warren Gatland was emphasising the fact we needed to play some rugby.
“We were under the pump and had nothing to lose, so we went out to try and show what we could do.”
With all the noise around Immanuel Feyi-Waboso not choosing to play for Wales, what has been forgotten about a little bit is what a gem Rio Dyer is…I think he can be a genuine superstar of the game, been super impressed every time I have watched him in the last 12-18 months!
— Simon Raiwalui (@SimonRaiwalui) February 3, 2024
Having been 20 points adrift at the break, Wales then conceded a second try to Duhan van der Merwe and were 27-0 down after 43 minutes.
New skipper Dafydd Jenkins and his young Welsh side were in unchartered territory, yet managed to roll up their sleeves and get to within a couple of points of an astonishing victory.
“Warren was soft spoken at half-time, he wasn’t shouting to try to get his point across. It was an onus on ourselves, more than Gats having to put his foot down,” added Dyer.
“Dafydd Jenkins brought the boys together and just said we can’t be putting out performances like that one in the first half. We stuck together and it was great to see the boys coming back.
“We need to take confidence from that second half and hopefully we can replicate it and put it into a first half next week. We need to keep that level of performance going.
“We’re a young squad and we’ve only been together for two weeks. We are getting used to each other, but we showed what we can do in the second half.
“Now we’ve got to stick to it. We can be much better, and you saw in the second half how we can play.
It just wasn’t to be for Wales
But Rio Dyer had the home support dreaming! #BBCRugby #SixNations pic.twitter.com/ojHuf368k7
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) February 3, 2024
“The first half wasn’t good enough, we all realise that. But we know how good we are, and we know how we can play, so that second half performance should give the boys the confidence to realise that we can back ourselves a bit more.
“The second half showed the amount of effort the boys put in. We’ve been working non-stop for the last two weeks and we’ve just got to keep going.
“We could easily have come out in the second half, kept letting them pump us and the score could have been 50-0. We need to back ourselves.
“The message for the second half was that we are all here for a reason and we’ve all got something to give to the game. Let’s not go into our shell.
“Now we’ve seen what we can do, we have to keep building momentum.”