{"id":8286,"date":"2026-02-16T19:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/scotland-game-chance-for-wales-to-deliver-better\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T19:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:20:02","slug":"scotland-game-chance-for-wales-to-deliver-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/scotland-game-chance-for-wales-to-deliver-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland game chance for Wales to &#8216;deliver better&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Published18 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wales forward Aaron Wainwright says next weekend&#x27;s Six Nations game against Scotland is a chance for Steve Tandy&#x27;s side to &quot;deliver something better&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The Scots will arrive in Cardiff on the back of a sparkling <a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c98q3zn6p0ro\">31-20 victory over England<\/a> while Wales have lost 13 successive matches in the tournament since 2023.<\/p>\n<p>After <a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/ce8r8jp5evmo\">losing 48-7 to England<\/a> on the opening weekend, the beleaguered Welsh side were swept away <a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cddn92m8nd5o\">54-12 by France<\/a> on Sunday &#8211; though the Wales camp felt they delivered an improved performance.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s obviously tough, first two games of the championship, tough scorelines,&quot; said number eight Wainwright.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We spoke after the game just about the bigger picture and the journey that we&#x27;re going on as a team and just to try and concentrate on that, take the learnings from each game.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, later down the line, we can look back on these results and performances and think how far we&#x27;ve come.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cqj9vwjljnwo\">\n<p>Wales cling to optimism despite another record loss<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published8 hours ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/articles\/c86y3gv1wwqo\">\n<p>Scots must replicate Calcutta Cup mentality in Wales &#8211; Darge<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published1 day ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wainwright won the first of his 64 Wales caps in 2018 and was part of the 2019 Grand Slam-winning squad.<\/p>\n<p>However, the 29-year-old Dragons back-rower has also endured a miserable three years with Wales since his second World Cup campaign in 2023, with just two victories over Japan to show for the past 25 Tests.<\/p>\n<p>Wales have conceded 50 points on more than five occasions in less than a year at the Principality Stadium &#8211; with Argentina, South Africa, England and now France all racking up record wins in Cardiff.<\/p>\n<p>Their opening two games of the current campaign have also seen them ship 102 points, the worst defensive display of any Six Nations side in a quarter of a century.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;You don&#x27;t get better by not playing the best teams in the world,&quot; added Wainwright.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;England were on a massive win streak, France one of the best teams in the world.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Despite conceding eight tries against the defending champions, Wainwright insisted there were improvements against the French.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I think we were quite tight in defence at times, a couple of times they were going passes off 10 or off nine quite wide and they were getting around us, so I think we just weren&#x27;t fanning out enough in [defence],&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I think they caught us there and once they get that, being able to go into their offloading there, it&#x27;s quite hard to get it back under control&#8230; that&#x27;s when they come into their own, so it was tough to deal with.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;So obviously looking forward to taking those learnings into next week.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/sport\/45097961\">What information do we collect from this quiz?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scotland themselves came in for considerable criticism for a <a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/clymye806k0o\">lacklustre performance in their opening defeat by Italy<\/a> in Rome.<\/p>\n<p>However, they responded in style to sweep aside England with what head coach Gregor Townsend described as &quot;some of the best rugby we&#x27;ve ever played&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Wales will also tackle the Scots with the disadvantage of a one-day shorter turnaround.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Yeah, I suppose you could look at it like that,&quot; accepted Wainwright speaking after Sunday&#x27;s defeat.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We spoke in the changing room afterwards, just what a great chance it&#x27;s going to be for us to come out here next week and deliver something better, like I just said, by going on a journey, <\/p>\n<p>&quot;If we can look to the future, look to next week and start to put those building blocks in place, the bigger picture will take care of itself.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/welsh\">Welsh Rugby<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/teams\/wales\">Wales Rugby Union<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\">Rugby Union<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/clynz242pgxo\">\n<p>Six Nations fixtures, results, standings and how to follow on the BBC<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published20 hours ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scotland game chance for Wales to &#x27;deliver better&#x27; Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Aaron Wainwright will join Leicester Tigers from Dragons next seasonPublished18 minutes agoWales f&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}