HE might have been stating the obvious, but defender Rob Edwards admitted that Wales must tighten up at the back in their Euro 2008 qualifier against Cyprus tonight. The 23-year-old Wolves player, who deputised for the injured James Collins in Saturday’s 5-1 defeat by Slovakia, said he was still bemused by Wales’ error-strew first-half display. And he said everyone involved was desperately keen to redeem themselves and prove to supporters that manager John Toshack was right to stick with his policy of bringing through a new crop of young players. “As a defender, keeping clean sheets is our main objective and we were far short of that at the weekend,” he said. “But in a funny sort of way when we were going forward and when we had the ball in the first half, I thought we were in control of the game. “Although it was 3-1 to them at half-time that was down to a few errors, so I felt it flattered them, but you simply can’t allow those sort of things to happen in international football. “It was my first start for a while, it was a really big game – our first home game in the qualifying campaign – and I think we showed in the first half we could play and that we could match them. “But everything they touched seemed to go in for them and we found it much tougher to get back in the second half when we were chasing the game.” | 
