Women’s Six Nations 2024: The pundits’ verdict on winless Wales

“It’s that old cliche that pressure is a privilege. You’re in that position where people are now wanting more and they’re expecting more because you’ve shown them that you’re such a good team.

“You’ve shown them your progression, so yes people are going to put pressure on you to keep performing. But you have to, it’s a mindset thing and yes, there are some young girls in there, we’ve seen big people leave, Siwan Lillicrap, Elinor Snowsill, Sioned Harries. Who is stepping up in that changing room?

“For me, I was looking out, trying to look at when the TV would pan out to see when you get little huddles of players, who’s talking? And there were times where they were gathered under the posts and I didn’t really see anyone.

“I just wonder, have we got enough players, because it can’t just be on one person’s shoulders, have we got enough players doing that? Which then goes back to, well, have the coaches facilitated the right environment to breed leaders? Because that’s something that you do in training, not just on the field.”

Former Wales fly-half Elinor Snowsill:

“The WRU (Welsh Rugby Union) knows it needs to do some work on its domestic league.

“We can’t forget, it was only three years ago that we were at rock bottom and didn’t have much investment at all. We’ve come such a long way in the past three years.

“It’s not going to be perfect overnight and it does take a long time.

“The girls are working very hard behind the scenes, as are the management staff. There will be no-one hurting more than them after that result. They will do the work behind the scenes and reflect on themselves.

“When you’re on a journey and when you’re improving, it’s not just all success. It’s an upwards and downwards trajectory. Sometimes you have to have these games to think ‘let’s reset ourselves, what do we actually need to work on and what areas of our game did we not get right and need to then get right?’.

“They’re not a bad team, they performed pretty well in areas against England and only lost to Scotland by two points.

“This result will come as a shock to them, but there’s no-one that will work harder than that group of girls.”

Former Wales centre Elen Evans:

“It was a great score against Ireland last year in Cardiff and then we went on with positives from that into the WX1 in New Zealand and ranked sixth in the world. We’ve come back to this year’s Six Nations and nothing seems to be clicking for Wales.

“But like [head coach] Ioan Cunningham is saying, we’re struggling to cope with the pressure and I think Hannah Jones has said it. It doesn’t matter what the tactics or the game plan are, if you haven’t got the energy and the want to win, which it didn’t look like [Wales had] on Saturday, then unfortunately nothing will work for them.

“This group of girls knew what was to be won in this Six Nations campaign – to stay in the top six in the world, to automatically qualify for the World Cup.

“But they’re not succeeding in anything at the minute and I’m afraid it’s [time for] a good stare into the mirror. There are massive players that Ioan Cunningham has mentioned – Sioned Harries, Caryl Thomas and Elinor Snowsill – who have retired, but can you put it on three big players like that? No, definitely not. There are massive players still there.

“Ireland are playing lovely rugby. Dannah O’Brien at 10 was just massively in control of the whole game and Wales just couldn’t get anything.

“The speed of ruck was so slow with Wales. Ireland would hit the ground and the ball was gone. They just couldn’t match up and what was sad to see as well as the game went on, they couldn’t even slow anything down with Ireland.

“The thought of facing France was daunting enough at the beginning of the campaign when confidence was high. But they are rock bottom at the minute and that might be the kick that they need to get going.

“A performance now is what we need because we’re facing Italy then which is an amazing opportunity [to be playing at Principality Stadium].

“So to be facing Italy as a Wooden Spoon contender at the end of the campaign… it’s not great. So get confidence going next weekend against France and build from there. Just find something inside them – the energy, the want, that I feel that they’ve lost.”