. The caretaker Wales coach, Matt Sherratt, in his final game in charge, believes his team can upset the odds and avoid a 17th successive Test defeat and a second consecutive tournament whitewash.
Sherratt has already helped improve squad morale after the abrupt mid-season departure of Warren Gatland and would now love to conclude the campaign with a win to reward the hard work of all involved in the Welsh setup. “If that win comes it would give everyone a massive lift, especially against England at home,” said Sherratt, who will revert to his existing job with Cardiff next week.
“I would love to sign off [with a win], not for me but for the players and staff who have been here for a long time. It would be huge for them. It’s important that it’s not something we talk about a huge amount in camp or you can get a bit desperate. There’ll be emotion on Saturday [but] it’s about getting that balance between heart and brain. There’ll be stacks of heart but we need to get our game on the pitch.”
After an encouraging display against Ireland and a bold second-half revival in Scotland, Sherratt has chosen, where possible, to retain the bulk of the players who started at Murrayfield. In the absence of the injured Tom Rogers, the Scarlets centre Joe Roberts will now start on the wing for the first time in his professional career with Aaron Wainwright’s inclusion in the back-row ahead of Tommy Reffell the only other tweak to the starting XV.
Sherratt believes it would have been a mistake to overreact on the basis of one below-par half of rugby against Scotland last weekend. “It wasn’t a great half of rugby in Edinburgh but what I didn’t want to do was start jumping around and making too many changes. Sometimes players need …
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