RWC 2015: ‘Wales are going to have to win it the hard way,’ admits Alun Wyn Jones

Wales went 22 games against the southern hemisphere’s big three without a victory until a narrow 12-6 win over South Africa last autumn

Alun Wyn Jones takes heart from Wales’ recent record (Reuters)

Wales are no strangers to adversity and second row Alun Wyn Jones believes his side can win the World Cup the hard way, having gone from the pool of death to the knock-out stage of doom.

On Saturday, Warren Gatland’s side face South Africa in the quarter-finals with the All Blacks most likely lying in wait should they qualify for the final four as they did in New Zealand four years ago.

This World Cup has already been one of hurdles for the Welsh to overcome – first with their seemingly never-ending injury crisis and then with the prospect of two higher-ranked teams in Australia and England in their pool.

And looking ahead to their next obstacle, Jones said: “If we are going to win the World Cup we are going to have to do it the hard way. Nobody has ever done it from finishing second in their pool but there’s got to be a first. We have lost to one southern hemisphere team but, if we’re going to have to progress to where we want to be, we are going to have to beat another two.”

Wales were left ruing missed opportunities in their 15-6 defeat to Australia at Twickenham, failing to make an impact on the scoreline when the Wallabies were reduced to 13 men for seven minutes following the second-half sin-binnings of Will Genia and Dean Mumm. Three times Wales got over the opposition try line but were held up by a staunch Australian defence and Jones was partially critical afterwards of his team’s tactics.

“I’m a piano-pusher not a piano-player and ultimately we do as we are told,” he said. “Had we stayed on their line for longer we could probably have got over it and felt we could have had a bit more out of the driving mauls after the penalties they conceded. But Australia didn’t score a try, so that’s a positive for us and that’s the best defensive performance we have faced from them.”

For Wales, it meant an 11th successive defeat to the Wallabies, dating back seven years.Southern hemisphere opposition have left Gatland’s side mentally scarred; they went 22 games against the region’s big three without a victory until a narrow 12-6 win over South Africa last autumn, a potentially vital mental bonus on Saturday.

“We can take solace from our last two performances against them,” said Jones. “We pushed them last summer and gave a good performance to beat them last autumn. But I think they will have a point to prove after their initial performance [a 34-32 defeat to Japan].”

Dan Biggar again kicked all Wales’ points – this time just two penalties with a rare miss, his first of the tournament – but he could not conjure up the late rearguard as he did against England two weekends previously. Biggar insisted, though, that he and his team-mates had not stayed downbeat for long. Speaking of last year’s victory over the Boks, he said: “That’s why we’re very positive. We should have won in South Africa in the second Test last summer and we had a great win in the Millennium last autumn.

“Out of the southern hemisphere teams, we’ve got the best record against them recently. There’s no denying that they’ll bring a varied game and it’ll be a huge task. We’ll go into the game as underdogs and we’re looking forward to that challenge. It’s not going to be difficult to raise ourselves. We’re absolutely desperate for it to come as soon as possible.”