There were plenty of positives in Wales’ opening Nations Championship match against Fiji, none more than Josh Adams’ game-changing moment in the second half.
Following surviving an early onslaught from the Pacific Islanders, to Steve Tandy’s side’s credit, they went in at the break level, 10-10.
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Loose-head Rhys Carré crossed early in the third quarter, before a mishap from Fiji.
Following a kick in behind by inside centre Joe Hawkins, which meandered its way past the hosts’ try line as winger Selestino Ravutaumada watched it roll past the dead-ball line.
So he thought. What he did not realise was that one of Wales’ more experienced players this summer, Josh Adams, was chasing a lost cause.
Instead, the 31-year-old thrust his hand to secure the most unlikely of scores, which brought daylight between the pair. Wales led 22-10; this was the game-changing moment.
“It’s one of those cliches: you just don’t give up on anything,” admitted Adams following Wales’ 39-24 win at the Cardiff City Stadium.
“That was a talking point of ours in the week in terms of boxing them in and if we see opportunities to put them behind, squeezing them in the corner.
“Decent kick from Joe, but what do they say, kicks only as good as its chase. You chase hard, and I got lucky, I guess, but if you don’t chase hard, you don’t get them chances.
“It’s important that for any young winger, you chase the ball as hard as you can.
“If I hadn’t put my foot down in the last sort of five or six metres, we probably scrum back then.
“So you know how the tables turn where you get a bit of luck, you’ve got to try. That’s two tries in quick succession there, or we get scrum back, and we’re under pressure again.“
That moment for Wales came after the 46-minute mark, and following Adams’s score, outside-half Dan Edwards kicked a penalty. Replacement hooker Ryan Elias and outside-centre Eddie James scored a further two tries, with Sam Costelow adding the extras for both.
This triumph now sees Wales make it consecutive Test matches in a row, and this follows an uplifting Six Nations campaign, in which Adams played every minute of every match for Wales.
“You’ve probably had loads of boys mention the last three games of the Six Nations referred to that,” added Adams on Wales’ momentum gained ahead of the summer campaign.
“That Ireland game, Scotland, and obviously beating Italy. We can’t get hung up on that because that’s the previous campaign and we did well, but we want to move on, and we want to kick on.
“We’ve been together for three campaigns, Six Nations and now into this summer campaign.
“There’s more expectation within our group. We put more pressure on ourselves to achieve things, and our game is moving on nicely.”
On Saturday, Wales face Argentina at the Estadio San Juan del Bicentenario, before then facing South Africa the following weekend.
Ahead of the Test against Los Pumas, Wales will spend most of the week in Buenos Aires, after travelling 7,000 miles.
Then they will take a short flight to San Juan (2 hours) to face Felipe Contepomi’s side, who got their Nations Championship campaign underway with a 47-38 home defeat against Scotland in Córdoba.
Unlike when Los Pumas put aside Wales in Cardiff during the 2025 autumn internationals, 52-28, Adams, who started that Sunday afternoon, stated that his side is a far different team from then.
“I’d like to think so,” Adams said. “We feel as a team that we have progressed from then.
“I’d like to think that they will see a progression in our game. But it’ll certainly be a different test again going to Argentina, going to San Juan and playing there.
“I’ve played there once, back in 2018, and I won. So I know how tough it is, and I know how good the Argentinians are at the minute. Very, very good team.
“Talk about tests, that’s right up there.”
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