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Gatland annoyed by Wales' indiscipline

Article Published: Saturday 26 June 2010

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Wales coach Warren Gatland has told his team that they will have to improve their discipline following their 29-10 loss to the All Blacks in Hamilton, New Zealand.

Gatland said that he had no problem with the sin-binned duo of Lee Byrne and Gavin Thomas but was disappointed that Wales allowed Dan Carter dictate how the match flowed.

"Dan's kicked a few penalties from 40 metres out and from our point of view there were a couple of discipline areas," said Gatland.

"There were two or three soft penalties that we need to look at eliminating."

Just before half time Byrne was sent to the bin for a spear tackle on All Blacks lock Tom Donnelly and then near the end of the match Thomas acted without thinking when he saw Sam Whitelock spoiling the ball and both were sent to the sin bin.

"There were two or three soft penalties that we need to look at eliminating from our game," said Gatland to the BBC.

Wales were thumped 42-9 last weekend and All Black coach Graham Henry called for a 30 per cent step up from his team but instead it was Wales who took the step up as this week they managed to stay in touch with their hosts for most of the match.

At half time the All Blacks led 13-3 and went ahead to 22-3 after around 25 minutes of the second half but Wales scored a late try.

"At 13-3 Dan's kicked a few penalties from 40 metres out and from our point of view there were a couple of discipline areas.

"There were two or three soft penalties that we need to look at eliminating from our game."

While Gatland was not happy that two of his players were sent to the bin he did say that both incidents were not as bad as the tripping incident that saw Alun Wyn Jones sin-binned when Wales played England at Twickenham.

"Lee has come and apologised," Gatland said. "It's one of those things that happens in a game. He lifted him off the ground and he's been yellow carded.

"I don't think there's any malice in what he's done but you have to make him aware that he has to be a bit more responsible next time.

"The frustrating things are the dumb things that players do (to be sin-binned yellow cards)

"I can't accuse Lee of being dumb. In Gavin's case that's a little bit of frustration. It's the one we spoke about in the Six Nations - the tripping one - that's stupid."

"There is a gap (between Wales and New Zealand) , we admit that. But we've got a massive amount of learning out of the last two weeks and that's what we keep saying about playing the best teams and coming to such a tough country to tour.

"For us and the future that's really positive."

All Blacks captain Richie McCaw had mixed views on the game - after being unable to cut loose like he had in Dunedin a week ago.

"It was a bit frustrating. When we did hold the ball and get down their end it was penalties we were getting," he said.

"We just kept it ticking over taking three points but it would have been nice to build pressure and score tries.

"Just turning over the ball let them off the hook a bit which is a bit disappointing.

"Even though we conceded the try at the end and being put under pressure like that I thought we defended pretty well."

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