Wales lost 17-18 in the final throws of their final World Rugby U20 Championship Pool game against the Baby Blacks last night (Wednesday), but a twist of fate means the sides will meet again in the fifth place semi-final in four days’ time.
To Strange and his men, this is a fantastic opportunity to test themselves again against one of the best teams in the world.
“There were huge positives from last night’s performance,” said Strange.
“Even though we were all bitterly disappointed to lose, the performance was excellent for the most part and we have already taken a lot of positives from it.
“The players were excellent, not only technically and tactically, but the togetherness they relied on so much in the Grand Slam campaign was back which was good to see.
“We started really well going 11-0 up. We let them off at times and the difference was in the way we dealt with a few critical decisions but we’ve already learned from those mistakes and hopefully on Monday some of those decisions will go in our favour and we’ll get the right result. Defensively we were superb and a number of players really took their performance up a level such as Dan Jones, Dillon Jones, Tom Phillips and Harrison Keddie.
“The key thing is that we are developing players and we’re excited to have a second Test now against New Zealand, a chance to have another crack at getting an historic result. It was a physical, high tempo game – the ball in play time went from 22 minutes against Georgia to 37 minutes last night which is where we want to be. We have an extra day’s rest now before preparing in earnest for Monday.”
