Wales wing Josh Adams has faced enough chaos agents in his time at international level to know when a win really means something.

Beating Fiji 24-39 to start the Nations Championship with a bonus point victory, he reckons, is right up there.

“Very pleased,” he said on reflection of an intense match. “I don’t think we’ll face a team as dangerous as that [in the competition].

“They’re so unpredictable, Fiji. Honestly, they’re such a tough team to play against and, for large parts of that game, I thought we were in control as well.”

If there was a moment that summed up Adams’ mindset, it was his own score – a try built on graft as much as guile.

When Joe Hawkins put a chipped kick in behind the Fijian back field, it looked like the Scarlets centre had overcooked the nudge and wing Selestino Ravutaumada would usher the ball beyond the try zone and out for a Fijian scrum around the halfway line.

However, the Racing 92 wing was not aware that Adams was haring up the wing, ready to pounce and dot the ball down before his Fijian counterpart.

“It’s one of them clichés, isn’t it, that you just don’t give up on anything,” he reflected.

“That was a talking point for us in the week, in terms of boxing them in, and then if we see opportunities, putting it in behind, squeezing them in the corner.

“Decent kick from Joe, but they say a kick is only as good as its chase, so you chase hard, and I got lucky, I guess, but if you don’t chase hard, you don’t get those chances.

“If I haven’t put my foot down in the last sort of five, six metres, we’ll probably scrum back, won’t we?

“So you know how the tables turn, you get a bit of luck, you get a try, that’s two tries in quick succession there, or we got a scrum back and we’re under pressure again.”

That balance, of countering Fiji’s threat while asserting Wales’ growing authority, ran through Adams’ assessment of a performance he clearly sees as another step on an upward curve since the Six Nations.

“There was loads of good improvements from Six Nations, which was pleasing, and we continued our comfortably,” he added.

“I thought we managed it really well, so on the whole everybody was well.”

The raw numbers at half-time might have made uneasy reading; even after Wales bossed the scoring in the second period, Fiji made 674 metres, with 32 offloads, 24 clean breaks, and a remarkable 42 defenders beaten.

According to Adams, though, inside the Welsh camp it felt different.

“It didn’t feel like that, to be honest with you,” Adams insisted.

“I thought there was patches, especially in that first half, where we could have put points on them, but it did feel at times you’d have them sort of boxed in, and next minute you’re on your own five, ten metre line, because that’s how dangerous they can be.

“We weren’t so much like, ‘oh, we got away with one.’ I thought we should have been further ahead, personally.

“We had some great chances to score more points, but we knew that if we could find a little bit more pressure, and when we’ve got them boxed, not give them easy outs.”

The third quarter was where Wales turned the screw, and Adams was quick to shine the light on the dominant Welsh pack.

“I thought our maul went really well, didn’t it?” he said.

“Our maul and scrum, our set-piece got us out of trouble a lot of time, so huge credit to the pack there. Got a few penalties, which gave us easy field positions.”

Beyond the immediate high of three wins on the bounce, Adams was keen to frame this latest victory as another stepping stone.

“You’ve probably heard loads of boys mention the last three games in the Six Nations,” he said, referencing the positive performances against Scotland and Ireland, as well as the final day victory over Italy.

“We can’t get hung up on that, because that’s the previous campaign and we played well, but we want to move on and we want to kick on.

“We’ve been together for three campaigns, from the autumn, through to the Six Nations, now into this summer campaign, so there’s more expectation within our group to put more pressure on ourselves to achieve things, and our game’s moving on nicely.”

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