Wyn Jones believes Wales should take heart from last year’s comeback in Paris when they take on France at the Principality Stadium on Saturday (4.45pm).
Wales trailed 16-0 at half-time in that fixture but three second-half tries and a Dan Biggar penalty saw them kick off their 2019 Grand Slam-winning campaign with a 24-19 victory.
And despite losing to Ireland in their last outing of this year’s Championship, Jones reckons their triumph at the Stade de France could give them the edge this weekend.
“It definitely gives us belief,” Jones said.
“It’s a never-say-die attitude.
“We had our backs against the wall. We just rolled our sleeves up and came back.
“It was a great win in the end. It shows how tight we are as a squad.
“It was obviously disappointing [losing in Ireland] because you want to win every game.
“But on a different day I think we could have won it towards the end.
“There were probably too many individual errors from all of us collectively.
“There’s no dent in our confidence, especially playing at home this weekend.
“It’s a great stadium with a great atmosphere and I think it gives everyone the confidence and the buzz you need.”
Wales followed up their Guinness Six Nations success by beating the French 20-19 in the quarter-finals of the World Cup later that year, and another win in Cardiff would make it four victories in a row over Les Bleus.
However, Fabien Galthie’s side will be brimming with confidence after impressive wins over England and Italy whereas defeat in Dublin – the first of the Wayne Pivac era – means Wales already have some catching up to do if they want to make it back-to-back Championship titles.
However prop Jones thinks Wales stand a good chance of getting a result if they can dictate the pace of the game.
“They’ve got big men but we’ve got to run them around the park,” Jones said.
“You know yourself as soon as you start running those big men around they start blowing and it makes the game easier for us.
“You want to try and move that big tight-eight around the field.
“If we start fast they’ll soon be looking up at the clock and going down for a breather.
“For us we’ve just got to keep the tempo up and keep playing our game.”
