Wales running on empty after World Cup exit

Wales were left feeling “empty” after a World Cup semi-final loss to France overshadowed by the early sending off of captain Sam Warburton, defence coach Shaun Edwards said Sunday.

Warburton was shown a straight red card by Irish referee Alain Rolland in the 19th minute of Saturday’s match here at Eden Park after a ‘tip tackle’ on France’s Vincent Clerc.

The wing was lifted into the air in first contact with the bigger Warburton and landed on the back of his head.

Despite being a man down for more than an hour, Wales still scored the only try of the match, through scrum-half Mike Phillips.

But France, showing little attacking intent and a muddled game plan based around kick and chases, went on to edge Wales 9-8 on the back of three penalties from Morgan Parra to set up a final next weekend against the winners of Sunday’s second semi-final between Australia and New Zealand.

Wales will play the losers of the trans-Tasman clash in the bronze medal game on Friday but that was no consolation for Edwards.

“Obviously I feel empty really because we’re not playing the premier event of world rugby, when I think in the opinion of the rugby world we could or should have been there,” Edwards said.

The former Wigan and Great Britain rugby league star acknowledged flanker Warburton’s tackle “deserved a penalty at least, and potentially a yellow card”.

“We have to adhere to what Mr Rolland decided and I think we still could have won the game, which is such a testimony to the ability, the attitude and the strength of this team,” Edwards said.

“It’s a shame for the rugby world that a team, not just in my opinion but in what seems to be everybody’s opinion, are not playing in the blue riband event of world rugby.”

But Edwards added that it was not just Warburton’s dismissal that had seen Wales fail to beat a lacklustre France, citing an off-target James Hook penalty, Stephen Jones’s missed conversion of Phillips’s try, where the ball hit the post and Leigh Halfpenny’s late long range penalty effort, which just dipped under the crossbar, as key moments in the game.

“Goalkicks have cost us quite dearly,” Edwards said. “When we won the (Six Nations) Grand Slam in 2008, one of the things that put us apart from our opponents was the standard of our goalkicking.

“Unfortunately on Saturday we missed three kicks we normally would have got.”

Veteran fly-half Jones, who replaced the ineffectual Hook early in the second half, said he was “bitterly disappointed to have lost in the manner we did”. “France didn’t want to play very much. As soon as they got into the lead they were not keen to play in their own half, so they just kicked the ball down field,” Jones said. Wales centre Jonathan Davies insisted Warburton had been treated harshly. “I honestly thought it was a yellow card,” the Scarlets back said. “I didn’t think it would be anything more than that. But we dug in after that and we deserved the win. AUCKLAND, Oct 16, 2011 (AFP)