Cunningham tells Wales to 'ignore score' after Scotland defeat

Head coach Ioan Cunningham has stressed that Wales are “going through a process” and that they should “ignore the score” following Friday’s heavy defeat against Scotland.

Games between the Six Nations rivals have been tightly fought in recent years, but Bryan Easson’s side were able to rack up 40 points in a devastating second half onslaught.

Cunningham was without a host of his senior ranks for the WXV2 warm-up in Edinburgh, but insists it has nothing to do with the players’ ongoing contract talks with the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).

Cunningham instead chose to give some younger players a taste of Test rugby with the World Cup less than 12 months away.

“I thought there were a load of positives,” Cunningham said after the match.

“We had six Under-20s players from the summer who were on the field in the last 20 minutes, which is fantastic for us.”

Prop forwards Maisie Davies and Rosie Carr and second row Alaw Pyrs all came off the bench to make their debuts, while number eight Gwennan Hopkins made her first Wales start.

Pyrs is the sister of prop Gwenllian and they became the first sisters to play for Wales since twins Claire and Louise Horgan in 2008.

Alisha Butchers also came off the bench to win her 50th cap, while Wales welcomed back three-time Olympian Jasmine Joyce and Gwen Crabb from long-term injury.

Wales held a narrow 7-5 lead at half-time before succumbing to the 40-14 defeat.

“I said to the team for us to ignore the score, we’re going through a process here,” Cunningham said.

“I thought our first half defensive effort was excellent. I think there are areas where we can learn and get better, try and get a bit more territory in the game and hold onto the ball for a bit longer.

“We’ve shown when we do we can create opportunities and score points.

"We are delighted we had the opportunity to expose some of that new talent to Test level rugby, we’ve grown some leadership in giving Keira [Bevan] the captaincy, I thought she was great tonight.

“But we’ve got Alex Callender, Carys Cox, Carys Phillips, Georgia Evans, Abbie Fleming to come back into the group, and Hannah Jones too.

“The depth that we want to keep growing in the side creates competition, which is healthy.”

In her first outing as captain, scrum-half Bevan said it was “a great honour”.

"We are in a bit of a transition at the minute, we are building a player pool," she said.

“Our main goal is our performances in WXV now.

“[At half time] it was a typical Wales Scotland match and we just wanted to start the first half on a positive.

“I thought we showed elements in the game that we can really punish teams when we keep possession and have territory.”

Wales will continue their preparations in London next week, where they will train against reigning world champions New Zealand.

Their final warm-up game will be against Australia at Rodney Parade on 20 September.

They will then fly out to South Africa for WXV2, taking on Australia, Italy and Japan.