Wales captain Angharad James says her team failed to change their usual “passion and pride” but reiterated that Morgan’s delay gives them hope for the second leg in Cardiff on Tuesday.
“It’s disappointing. “It wasn’t a performance we wanted, but it’s the break (in the tie),” James said.
“We have the home game on Tuesday and it’s more important than ever, so hopefully we can get a big crowd.
“There are new partnerships that take time to build, but there wasn’t the passion or pride we would have liked. We could have given more.
“We’ll learn from it and be better on Tuesday.”
Wales have come close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their last three qualifying cycles and Wilkinson believes the players’ huge desire to make history led them to play “frantically”.
“We played with a frenzy that I haven’t seen before and that’s where a team that hasn’t made it a couple of times, you see it come out and we’re better than that,” he said.
“They love him very much; This is what I mean when I talk about the naivety of the team at times, they stretch themselves because they go into tackles when they shouldn’t, they chase and then as soon as they connect as a team you see what they can do. do.”
Wilkinson considered the 2-1 defeat to be the most Wales deserved in a match in which they were favorites to win.
“We’re very fortunate that it’s a back-and-forth series and now we can take it home, we have a one-goal deficit to make up,” he added.
“I think we were lucky to go into half-time at 0-0 and I told the players that. This game has to mean something for the growth of our team. I thought they could have scored and made it 3-0 at one point.
“As soon as we started playing our football and had them running after us, you saw how many chances we created. “We have to look for the positive and we are definitely looking forward to getting home in front of our fans and using that energy to cheer on the team.”
Wales improved markedly after substitute Jess Fishlock came on, and Wales’ most capped player and record goalscorer provided the assist for Morgan’s potentially vital late goal.
However, Wilkinson says Wales cannot use Fishlock’s absence – and cap centurion Sophie Ingle, who is out until 2025 after ACL surgery – as excuses.
“We have to look at what we were doing in terms of giving ourselves a chance in Cardiff and we started to put pressure on them and we had some chances and finally putting the ball in the back of the net gives us the confidence to go home I think. I’m happy,” Wilkinson added.
“If you don’t have Jess Fishlock on the pitch she’s a big loss and the same goes for Sophie Ingle. It’s been a long time (five years) since we’ve been without them but that’s no excuse, because we have the depth.
“What we were probably missing was ‘who do you turn to when times are tough?’ but the players on the field must defend Wales.”
