Henry pays tribute to Gibbs

Coach Graham Henry has paid tribute to Scott Gibbs following his man-of-the-match display in Wales' Six Nations victory over Italy.  

The centre boosted his Lions hopes with two tries in the 33-23 victory in Rome.

"Scott Gibbs will be delighted with the way he played," said Henry, who will also coach the Lions on the summer tour of Australia.

"To score two tries and get a man-of-the-match award shows the character of the guy.

"He has been a big-time footballer for Wales for a long time. He was under pressure during the week to perform well here and he did."

Henry also praised scrum-half Gareth Cooper, who marked his debut with a try, having only been called up this morning after Rob Howley was forced to cry off because of a back injury.

"He knew he was playing at 11 o'clock this morning so he had plenty of time to prepare," quipped Henry, after his side made it four away championship games without defeat for the first time since 1979.

"Gareth had an inkling he might be playing because Rob has been struggling. But he did very well."

The victory lifted Wales into second place in the championship and they will stay there if they beat Ireland when the Six Nations resumes in the autumn.

That comes despite the record home defeat against England in their championship opener.

Henry added: "I'm extremely happy with the season.

"We had one real hiccup - and that was against the English guys.

"We could have done better against South Africa but there are lots of positives from this season. We have made a lot of progress."

Henry refused to comment about New Zealand referee Paul Honiss despite admitting his side had been frustrated by the stop-start nature of the game.

But skipper David Young said: "We could not get anything going.

"I was constantly querying the referee's decisions, but he explained what he was doing so we just had to get on with it.

"It was a stop-start game and we did not want that, but we've got the win so we have to be delighted with that."