Shanklin: We will avoid Scotland trap

Before six minutes were up, the Scots were 21-0 down against Italy at Murrayfield after gifting two interception tries and a charge down. Shanklin says Wales will study the Italian defence and will not try the same reckless approach which undid Scotland.

“They put a lot of pressure on Scotland with their defence and it’s something we are going to have to look at,” said Shanklin, one of the Wales try scorers in Paris. “They are quite similar to France with the speed of their line and the aggressiveness of their defence.

“With the blitz defence that they use you cannot throw these long passes, otherwise they get intercepted. We have got to look at the Scotland game and we do not want to fall into the same trap Scotland did.”

Wales outscored France in Paris in terms of tries scored; three to two. Shanklin crossed the line for the second to put Gareth Jenkins’s team 14-3 up early on.

“The start was a little bit surprising and we were in a good position, but that’s the trouble with scoring early because teams do come back at you,” said the Blues centre. “We were just glad that we played a lot better against France, we mixed the game up and the game was there to be won.

“We can take a lot from the game into Italy. We were disappointed after the game and it is quite difficult to take the positives out of a loss, but we did outscore France in tries and we just have to take that into the next two games.”