{"id":26699,"date":"2026-03-07T14:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/six-nations-2026-wales-make-progress-but-winning-is-next-step\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T14:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:10:26","slug":"six-nations-2026-wales-make-progress-but-winning-is-next-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/six-nations-2026-wales-make-progress-but-winning-is-next-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Wales make progress, but winning is next step"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cardiff flanker Alex Mann typified the Welsh defensive display against Ireland as Tandy&#8217;s side made more than 240 tackles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was not just the number, it was the impact of the rearguard resistance, demonstrated by a thunderous tackle by Eddie James on Garry Ringrose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tackle statistics often differ as the tally is frequently revised after a match. If Mann made 32 or 33 tackles depending on which facts and figures you follow, that would be a Six Nations record surpassing France hooker Guilhem Guirado and Wales lock Luke Charteris, who both managed 31 in one game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mann&#8217;s fellow Cardiff flanker James Botham, lock Dafydd Jenkins and captain Lake were not far behind in the tackle charts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tandy has only picked Mann and Lake to start in all eight matches in his era and praised his dogged back rower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Manny [Alex Mann] has been outstanding,&#8221; said Tandy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He doesn&#8217;t get the plaudits he deserves, there&#8217;s always probably question marks over him whereas we see the player both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He&#8217;s not the biggest man in the world, but he&#8217;s growing as a leader as well and only going to get better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Wales centre Jamie Roberts hailed the defensive effort.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I thought they were magnificent,&#8221; Roberts told ITV.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We know how physical Ireland are, but Wales stopped that green wave dead in its tracks on many occasions and they can take huge pride from that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve talked about Wales being a bit soft, maybe, in the past year, teams finding it easy to score easy tries against them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This was very different, that level of defensive intensity was brilliant.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tandy also pointed to the improved discipline with Wales only conceding seven penalties, despite being under pressure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cvg5049z36do?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cardiff flanker Alex Mann typified the Welsh defensive display against Ireland as Tandy&#8217;s side made more than 240 tackles. It was not just the number, it was the impact of the rearguard resistance, demonstrated by a thunderous tackle by Eddie James on Garry Ringrose. Tackle statistics often differ as the tally is frequently revised after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26701,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26699\/revisions\/26701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}