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Roberts picks up a try and Man of the Match award

Roberts picks up a try and Man of the Match award

A week after most people thought he should have been crowned the RBS 6 Nations Man of the Match in Dublin, Jamie Roberts picked up the top award after another power-packed performance in Wales’ 27-23 win over Scotland.

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The Harlequins centre came up with his 10th try in 76 games for his country in the second half as he helped to inspire a major fightback that keeps Wales very much in the hunt for a record breaking 27th championship title.

 “It was a good game of rugby today and Scotland deserve a lot of credit for the way they played. There were a few mistakes for us and they put us under pressure,” said Roberts.

“I thought Tom James had gone the length and that would have been nice if he could have scored that, but a win’s a win. The guys will enjoy it because it’s a win at home, the support was great and it’s privilege to play here.

“We knew we needed to tighten up around the ruck. Greig Laidlaw is a good running nine and when he gets on the front foot he is a dangerous player. We won the battle on the gainline in the second half and around the fringes.”
 
Wales skipper Sam Warburton had been saying all week that he expected Scotland to provide a tough challenge and he wasn’t disappointed at what the Rugby World Cup quarter-finalists brought to the Principality Stadium.

“There are still things to work on. People might be surprised by that, but we are not. We knew Scotland were going to turn up because we saw the way they played in the World Cup and last week,” Said Warburton.

“We knew it was going to be an immensely tough challenge and it’s going to be a tough 6 Nations this year and will be wide open. The first half wasn’t great, but we sorted it out a bit in the second half.

“Historically we gradually get better as the tournament goes on which is a positive sign for us. It was a bit better than last week, we came out of the blocks really poorly and were chasing the game.

“It was better this week and you have to give credit to Scotland, with the way they are playing they don’t deserve to be zero from two and I’m sure they’ll only get better in this competition.”

George North ended a six match run without a try to notch his 24th touchdown for Wales in the second half. He was delighted to get back on the scoresheet.

“It has been a while and it was nice to score again. We had 10-15 minutes of pressure in the second half and got the points we needed,” said North.
 
“With the form the Scots had shown at the World Cup we knew they were a team of quality and we had to dig deep. They put a lot of pressure on us to come out and turn things around in the second half.

“We will definitely improve on some things and we need to be a bit more clinical. The number of turn-overs in the first half kept the pace of the game dangerously high.”
 
Scottish skipper Greig Laidlaw was bitterly disappointed at losing a ninth straight game in the championship, especially as his side took the lead three times during the match.
 
“It doesn’t get any easier to take. We are doing so many good things then a couple of soft moments cost us when Wales scored a couple of tries,” said Laidlaw.

“We scored some tries ourselves, we got a nice try towards the end. Credit to Wales, they deserved to win but we can look at ourselves and say we need to improve the line-out, at this level you need good line-out ball.

“We got good field position and gave the ball up at the line-out or give poor penalties away and let them off the hook and they all add up in the end.”

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