Wales’ Taulupe Faletau lauded the work of the newly capped internationals as they beat Italy 38-18 at Parc y Scarlets to seal fifth spot in the Autumn Nations Cup.
Faletau was named Player of the Match in Llanelli, which saw the lead switch three times in a highly competitive contest with Wales securing a comfortable victory in the end
Kieran Hardy and Sam Parry both scored their first tries for Wales, while teenage winger Louis-Rees Zammit impressed throughout.
Hardy and Parry gave Wales a bright start before tries from Marco Zanon and Johan Meyer either side of the break gave Italy the lead.
But a trio of Welsh scores from Gareth Davies, George North and Justin Tipuric in the final quarter ensured the win for Wayne Pivac’s men.
“The youngsters are very exciting, they have the skill set and are athletic – it’ll do them good to get game time during this camp. I’m sure they’ll push on and get many more,” Faletau said.
“This is what we wanted to do today as a team – we wanted the result we got today.
“But there’s still parts of our performances we need to work on and we want to keep improving.
“We spoke at half-time [about letting them back into the game]. We scored a couple of tries and maybe took our foot off the gas and allowed Italy back in the game. We’re pleased with the result and we’ll work on the performance.”
Faletau’s long-time back-row partner Justin Tipuric was impressed with his side’s desire to fight until the end and says the fresh faces will benefit from having to dig deep.
“It’s not an easy thing to do to bring fresh faces in,” said the 31-year-old try-scorer.
“We had Aaron Wainwright in the second row and Elliot Dee on the flank at the end, it wasn’t ideal but we came away with a 20-point margin.
“The front five gave us the front-foot ball and got us over the gainline to provide us the speed to play off.
“All week we spoke about being physical and we did that in the second half.
“It showed the type of team we are, we don’t give in and will fight until the very end.”
