Rob Howley’s side will go into this weekend’s game against Japan with confidence boosted by the 24-20 triumph over Argentina and Owens wants to build on that performance and add victories over the Japanese and the Springboks next week to complete a hat-trick of series wins.
“Our targets have to be improving our performance and winning the next two games. We improved last week and we need to improve this week and go on and win the next two games,” said Owens.
“We were really pleased with the result against the Pumas and it was a much improved performance from the previous week. Against Australia we didn’t win the battle on the advantage line, but we were much better in defence and our set piece was a massive positive against Argentina.
“We won a lot more of the collisions, and we dominated possession and territory, especially in the first half and put them under pressure. We still have plenty to work on and improve on, but we are in a much better place than we were.”
One aspect of their game that Owens says Wales will be working hard on this week is converting their close-range pressure into more points. There was a period at the end of the first-half against the Pumas when Wales failed to convert four line-outs and as many scrums into any points five metres out from the visitors’ line.
“We were a little bit frustrated that we didn’t come away with a bit more than we did against the Pumas. We negated their massive scrum and our line-out was good, but we need to tighten up on our driving maul,” admitted Owens.
“There was a little bit of white line fever at times and we didn’t execute as well as we would have liked in that area, even though we had spoken all week about not being too individual close to the line. The top teams in the southern hemisphere convert those chances, but we still have to work on that part of our game.”
