Gatland has sympathy for nation’s frustration as sorry Wales slump again

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Talking to the Welsh language broadcaster S4C, Gatland understood the supporters' frustrations. “I reckon people must be getting pretty stoked and we're buzzing as well, 'cause we made the chances but we stuffed up and the penalties were a bit of a dag-Er,” he said. “As a coaching team and footy players, they're not too hard to sort out, but we need to get our heads around those critical moments.”

Italy outplayed the rain and condemned toothless Wales to 14th straight defeat

After last season's 24-21 loss to Italy in Cardiff, which saw Wales awarded the wooden spoon in Six Nations, head coach Gatland put in his resignation. This is said to have been turned down by Abi Tierney, the chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union. Wales haven't had a win since.

When grilled by the BBC on why his crew missed out again, Gatland claimed they made mistakes on their own doing. 'It's very disappointing,' he said. 'We stuffed ourselves with 14 penalty decisions against just four in our favour. Alright, I know they gave us a few at the end. We had a few chances we blew and couldn't convert them into a win. It's really disappointing.'

We've been pretty upfront with the players on the messaging, but when we look back at the game footage, there were a few games-stopers of basic skills that slipped up, some encouraging contacts in kick chases, the scrum was a bit below what we needed, but we still made some opportunities, and in fairness to the boys, we were a bit unlucky there too. Josh Adams had a couple of clear-cut chances, so it's bloody frustrating, mate.

G'day, fair dinkum we just gotta be upfront with ourselves, mate. Some of the blunders we made as a team, we gotta work on fixin' those things. In a game like tonight, in those shockin' weather conditions, you've gotta be as arrow-sharp as possible. That means your discipline really comes into play, your kickin' game and tacklin' to keep up [become more important]. And then lookin' for chances to take. They kept the scoreboard clickin' over with the penalties.

On the future of Welsh rugby, Watladen was a bit more optimistic, saying: “Hopefully there's a deal done with the union and the regions, and I reckon that's a good thing. We've chatted about the pathways, and that's the plan for us as we head into 2027 and '29. I'm hoping that's sorted as soon as you can.”

Gatland's job is under scrutiny now, but there aren't any easy fixes. On ITV, former Welsh fly-half Dan Biggar didn't rule out a change during the competition. "That's up to the people getting the big bucks to decide," Biggar said. "I don't think anything's ruled out at the moment, it can't just keep going on like this."