Wales’ Six Nations is yet to ignite.

After a tight 18-20 home loss against Scotland, Wales have lost successive away matches against England and Ireland.

Whilst the performance at Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium offered some positives, the result against Ireland was particularly disappointing.

Wales beat the Irish 31-5 in Cardiff last year having won 19-27 in Ireland the year before but on Saturday they were thoroughly outplayed in a 36-5 defeat.

Ireland to their credit were much improved, no doubt in part due to the rise of professionalism along with the return of several key players from the sevens circuit.

However, Wales also made several errors in their handling whilst their lineout continues to malfunction.

Carys Cox started on the wing for Wales but moved to the centres following and injury to inside centre Kerin Lake against Ireland and she along with her teammates are looking to write the wrongs from last week.

“We’re hurting a lot still and we’re disappointed with the performance we put out,” said Cox.

“It was uncharacteristic, England was one of the better performances we’ve had recently and we were really positive from that but something didn’t click on the day against Ireland.

“I don’t think the squad is worried, it’s just a case of finding that click and taking the positives from the game and trying to replicate it in the next two weeks.

“It’s only going to take that one win for us to be back on that winning train. It just takes that one day where every individual on the team performing and I think we’ll get that momentum back into our winning ways.”

Such has been Wales’ rise through 2022 and 2023 that this years’ Six Nations has so far been a massive disappointment.

In 2021 Wales lost 0-45 at home to Ireland and finished bottom after failing to win any of their three games in a shortened championship.

Later that year Wales announced professional contracts and immediately reaped the rewards, finishing third in the following two Six Nations with the latter in 2023 earning them a place at the top table of the inaugural WXV1.

Ireland by comparison announced professional contracts towards the end of 2022 and are now seeing a similar response, having won WXV3 in New Zealand last Autumn.

The games don’t get any easier for Wales as they welcome France to the Cardiff Arms Park on Sunday and Cox says head coach Ioan Cunningham has looked to simplify things ahead of their clash again Les Bleus.

“We’ve stripped everything back and we’ve said we need to go back to what we’re good at,” said Cox.

“Historically when our backs are against the wall is when we produce our best rugby, I think we can take confidence from that in previous years.

“Get clarity, be clinical and hopefully come out on top.”