Ellis Jenkins insists Wales will be targeting an autumn clean-sweep, as they look to extend their eight-match winning streak when South Africa visit Principality Stadium on Saturday.
The Cardiff Blues star skippered Warren Gatland’s side to a comprehensive victory over Tonga during the weekend, with regional team-mate, Tomos Williams, amongst the try scorers for the hosts.
Jenkins, who was making his first start in the national stadium, believes the Tonga encounter was perfect preparation ahead of next year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.
“We were really happy with the way the summer went, and we finished the tour unbeaten. To do that again would be a bit of a statement from us, going into the Six Nations,” said Jenkins.
“We’ve spoken about how we want to do that and I think eight from eight will be a good record to take with us to the Six Nations.
“We spoke about how this is a good example of what we could come up against in the World Cup, with a rotation of the squad against different opposition. It was our challenge to make sure the performance was there.
“There aren’t any boys who were involved who would be happy at being called ‘second-teamers’. Everyone wants to be in that first team and it’s a challenge for us.
“Any time you get to play in this stadium, it’s an honour, especially with a big crowd like that and a lot of boys winning their first home caps.
“There were also big milestones for Jonah [Holmes] and Sanj [Liam Williams] as well, so it was nice to get the result that we did.
“The second half was a little bit better than the last 20 of the first half. I think we showed how much the boys wanted to play.
“It was a bit of a tussle at times, especially when they started to come back into it and threw everything at us.
“We spoke all week about wanting to tire them down and coming through at the end, and that panned out exactly as we thought. It was tough for us, but we made it tougher for them.”