Chris Coleman’s side are within a point of reaching the European Championship in France next summer and have two opportunities to get it in the closing two qualifiers, away to Bosnia-Herzegovina on Saturday and at home to group whipping boys Andorra on Tuesday.
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“The manager has been fantastic since he’s come in, he’s imposed his own style and we’ve got that mentality to always work and never say die”.
Manager Chris Coleman had been sweating on Bale’s fitness in recent weeks but the 26-year old allayed fears he might be unavailable after coming on as a substitute in Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at city rivals Atletico on Sunday.
The Wales boss has often spoken of his desire to see the likes of Gunter go beyond Neville Southall’s Welsh record of 92 appearances and bring up three figures in a red shirt. “As a Welshman if we’re first or second, as long as we get there we’re happy”. Paul Bodin struck the bar with a penalty against Romania in the final qualification game for the 1994 World Cup finals and a decade later Mark Hughes’ side lost to Russian Federation in a play-off for a place at Euro 2004.
“Especially as a full-back, it’s nice to be in the team to be able to try and get a level of consistency, and I’ve felt I’ve shown that over the last couple of games”, said Davies.
“Before that there wasn’t really a desire to win, to be the best, and to do as well as you can”.
“So for us as players it goes without saying that the manager should be rewarded and obviously he’s the man for the job”.
“Every time I pull on a Wales jersey it’s a massive honour and it’s a joy to be involved with the success we’re having now”.
“We never start talking about what is to come, not once did we talk about winning the games in the last qualifiers, it’s always aiming for a good performance”.
“There are a lot of us who have a lot of caps and that will help us in tough games like Bosnia”.
“The fans have a massive part to play, we had years of struggling to sell tickets, in stadiums three-quarters empty, but from the beginning of this campaign it’s been different”, he explained.
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“We’ll have about 800 fans out in Bosnia with us, hopefully we can celebrate with them but we also know there will be 33,000 to cheer us on against Andorra”. The atmosphere against Belgium was incredible, away in Cyprus the fans were unbelievable and it’s nice to repay that support with good results. The human part of you was thinking, “It’d be great if we could experience this”.
