Wales need to 'dust off' heavy Wallaroos defeat in WXV2

In a week where the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) showered us with positive news on the womenâ€TMs game, so the players suffered a chastening Cape Town defeat against Australia.

In the wake of 37 full-time contracts and a flagship game at the Principality Stadium against England to look forward to in the Six Nations, Wales understandably went into their WXV2 opener against the Wallaroos with their tails up.

And who can blame them? They had beaten their opposition for the first time in their history just eight days earlier, running out 31-24 winners in a nail-biter warm-up game at Rodney Parade.

The Welsh camp had emphasised the importance of backing that performance up this week, but they were the first to admit post-match that they lost the physical battle.

Not only that, they succumbed to their worst Wallaroos defeat as the gold and greens ran riot in a devastating second-half blitz that saw Wales succumb 37-5.

Wales have just a six-day turnaround before they face Six Nations rivals Italy on Friday, who lost their opener 19-0 to Scotland.

Walesâ€TM preparations had been far from ideal. Not only did they have less than a week to acclimatise to Cape Town, they travelled without one of their star players.

Sisilia Tuipulotu was left behind in the UK after what the WRU called an "administrative oversight" in her visa.

Ioan Cunningham was also forced to reshuffle his matchday 23 with Kate Williams and Hannah Jones suffering knocks in training.

But the head coach made no excuses: "Itâ€TMs the same for Australia as well, we both played last Friday, weâ€TMve both done the same amount of travelling.

"Weâ€TMve got to look at ourselves, dust ourselves off, review the game and learn quickly because weâ€TMve got a short turnaround.

"Disruption in the week doesnâ€TMt help, it happened last week with three players, it happened this week with two players, but itâ€TMs part of what we do, we pick up little injuries and we just have to adjust and react the best we can. Thatâ€TMs why weâ€TMve got a squad and we back everyone in our squad.

"Weâ€TMre obviously disappointed with the result, but we started really well. We showed how threatening we can be with ball in hand. We had plenty of possession, plenty of territory, but all that didnâ€TMt convert into points.

"Credit to Australia, they changed their intensity in the last 25 minutes and pulled away from us."