Amy Evans says Wales Women are determined to finish the Six Nations with a flourish when they host Ireland on Sunday.
The Ospreys prop was player of the match in the dramatic 17-15 victory over Scotland at the weekend and insists Rowland Phillips’ side are in the mood for back-to-back victories to end their campaign.
Wales had gone four matches without a win – including three in the tournament – before their triumph in Glasgow and now Evans believes the momentum is in their favour.
“Ireland is always a big occasion and a game we play with a lot of heart and passion. We’ll go back and work hard this week and give it our all,” said Evans.
“We’re looking forward to coming home for our final game against Ireland. It’s another big game and it will be great to finish the Six Nations with a home crowd behind us.”
Ireland are only a point and one place ahead of fifth-placed Wales in the Six Nations table and a victory for the home side will reverse those standings.
Ireland were well beaten, 47-17 by France at the weekend whilst for Wales, Lleucu George showed nerves of steel to kick a match-winning conversion with the final action of the match against the Scots and Evans added. “It was so important to get the win.
“We knew it was going to be a tough match after our last two encounters against Scotland being so close and we’re all elated to get the win. It was a massive defensive battle in Italy and we managed to put some attacking plays together against England.
“This game was about putting those two elements together and we managed to score two tries and keep them out when we needed to. When Scotland scored at the end, our heads dropped slightly, but Elinor Snowsill gathered us behind the posts and said ‘It takes 10 seconds to score a try, we’ve got six minutes left, and we just need belief.
“We all knuckled down, believed in ourselves, and it was just down to pure hard word and graft in the end.” Scotland had led through Jade Konkel’s seventh-minute try, but a penalty, then a try, by Bethan Lewis put Wales ahead.
Sarah Bonner crossed from a line-out to level and Chloe Rollie put the Scots ahead with five minutes left.
But George successfully converted Siwan Lillicrap’s try to give Wales their first win of the campaign. Evans believes Wales can still improve further and will take confidence from their Scotland win.
“We left lots of opportunities out there that we didn’t exploit, but with the conditions we knew it was going to be a close game,” she added. “We needed to keep it tight rather than risk errors by going out wide.
“We pride ourselves on our set-piece. As a prop that’s what I judge myself on. We had a lot of penalties from the scrum which gave us a platform to play from so we are pleased there and our attacking line-outs were really good, too.”
