Wales ride their luck to book SF spot

Wales boss Warren Gatland admitted fortune favoured his side as they beat France 20-19 to reach the last four of the Rugby World Cup. Les Bleus flew out of the blocks with Sebastien Vahaamahina and Charles Ollivon going over before eight minutes had passed. Aaron Wainwright touched down after 12 minutes but France continued to push and went into the interval 19-10 to the good thanks to a brilliant Virimi Vakatawa score. Wales remained under the cosh but were handed a lifeline when from a driving line-out, and with his team in the ascendancy, lock Vahaamahina elbowed Wainwright flush in the face and was quite rightly sent off. Gatland’s side not exactly kick on but did finally force a try with 74 minutes on the clock. Replacement back-row Ross Moriarty, himself sin-binned in the first half, was the hero, touching down following strong work from his fellow forwards. Dan Biggar converted to make it 20-19 and speaking afterwards, the Wales coach admitted his side will need to improve after riding their luck. Gatland BBC Radio 5 Live: “I think the better team lost today. The thing about our boys is they don’t give up, they keep trying until the end. We kept working away. “I’m proud of the boys because I think lesser teams would have capitulated but we didn’t do that.” He added: “We’ll just go back, recover today and travel to Tokyo tomorrow. I don’t think we’ve got too many injuries, maybe a hamstring with Josh Navidi. We’ll probably have a quiet night tonight!”