DESPITE spirited performances from former Amman Valley Comprehensive School pupils Hannah Jones, at outside centre, and Jess Roberts, at scrum-half, Wales were well-beaten in their second Six Nations outing of the season.

Wales are still chasing their first first points of the Warren Abrahams era after a crushing 45-0 defeat to Ireland at Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday – but the head coach said he could take heart from some positive individual efforts.

With the visiting forwards on well on top, Eimear Considine and Beibhinn Parsons both crossed twice for the visiting team, with Sene Naoupu also scoring to give the Irish a commanding 31-0 lead at the half-time interval.

Wales improved in the second half, but were unable to get the ball to their exciting back-line, and Ireland's Dorothy Wall burrowed over for another try, before Hannah Tyrrell ran in late on to seal a very convincing win.

Wales' women remain without a win in the Six Nations Championship since beating Ireland in the final round of the 2019 tournament, and having also lost heavily 53-0 out in France, another big defeat was a real blow for the team.

Head coach Warren Abrahams said he was bitterly disappointed with the results so far, but remains confident that Wales have the players to turn things around long term.

“There’s some incredible lessons in there, and hopefully it will make us better as a team going forward,” said Abrahams. “We all need to go and critically review ourselves both as a collective and individually.

"I need to do that myself and my coaching team, management, and players, all of us.

“It just wasn’t good enough, but I believe in this squad. I’ve seen how they train, and I’ve seen the potential we have in this squad.

“We just need to keep believing, these tough moments will definitely bring us closer together as a group and the key thing is if we learn from these tough lessons, keep developing, and keep progressing then hopefully we can turn this around.”

Abrahams insisted that he won’t be afraid to make big changes ahead of their Six Nations play-off clash in two weeks’ time, with a number of young players having impressed him.

“We’ve got to go and look at every bit of detail from our preparation, from our practice design, our tactical approach to the game and each individual,” he commented.

"We’ve got to go and look at it and we’ve got to figure out if it needs to be a different blend or not.

“It’s my responsibility as head coach to look at where we got it wrong, and turn it around as quickly as possible. If it means we’ve got to make some changes then so be it.

“There’s some good young players in this squad we are excited about for the future.”

Wales will finish bottom of Pool B and will now contest a 5/6th place play-off on 24 April with either Italy or Scotland, who face each other in Glasgow next weekend.

Wales line-up (v Ireland): Robyn Wilkins (Gloucester-Hartpury); Lisa Neumann (Sale Sharks), Hannah Jones (Gloucester-Hartpury), Kerin Lake (Gloucester-Hartpury), Courtney Keight (Bristol Bears); Elinor Snowsill (Bristol Bears), Jess Roberts (Sale Sharks); Cara Hope (Gloucester-Hartpury), Kelsey Jones (Gloucester-Hartpury), Cerys Hale (Gloucester-Hartpury), Natalia John (Bristol Bears), Gwen Crabb (Gloucester-Hartpury), Georgia Evans (Saracens), Manon Johnes (Bristol Bears), Siwan Lillicrap (capt, Bristol Bears). Replacements: Molly Kelly (Sale Sharks), Caryl Thomas (Worcester Warriors), Donna Rose (Saracens), Teleri Wyn Davies (Sale Sharks), Bethan Dainton (Harlequins), Megan Davies (Exeter Chiefs), Niamh Terry (Exeter Chiefs), Caitlin Lewis (Cardiff Met).