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Wales captain Angharad James says her side failed to show their usual “passion and pride” but reiterated that Morgan’s late goal gives them hope for the return leg in Cardiff on Tuesday.

“It’s disappointing. It wasn’t a performance we wanted but it’s half-time (in the tie),” James said.

“We’ve got the home leg 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 will learn from it and we will be better on Tuesday.”

Wales have come close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their last three qualification cycles and Wilkinson believes the players’ huge desire to make history led to them playing “frantically”.

“We played with a franticness that I haven’t seen before and that is where a team that hasn’t quite made it a couple of times, you see that coming out and we are better than that,” she said.

“They want it so much; this is what I mean when I talk about the naivety of the team on occasion, they get stretched because they dive in to tackles when they shouldn’t, they go chasing and then as soon as they connect as a team you see what they can do.”

Wilkinson felt the 2-1 defeat was the most Wales deserved from a game they were favourites to win.

“We are very fortunate it is a home and away series and we get to bring it home now, we have a one goal deficit to make up,” she added.

“I think we were lucky to go in at 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’ve got to look for the positives and we are definitely looking forward to getting home in front of our fans and using that energy to spur the team on.”

Wales improved markedly after substitute Jess Fishlock came on, with Wales’ most-capped player and record goalscorer providing the assist for Morgan’s potentially vital late goal.

However, Wilkinson says Wales cannot use the absence of Fishlock – 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 had some opportunities and finally getting the ball in the back of the net gives us a confidence going home that I am pleased about,” Wilkinson added.

“If you don’t have Jess Fishlock on the field she’s a huge miss and the same with Sophie Ingle. It’s a long time (five years) since we were without the pair of them but that is not an excuse, because we have the depth.

“What we were probably lacking was ‘who do you look to when times are tough?’ but the players out on the pitch need to stand tall for Wales.”

LOS ANGELES — It was a sprained ankle, not a banged-up knee or hamstring. It was 10 innings of gritting through pain, not an improbable pinch-hit appearance off the bench. It was a lift of the bat toward the sky and a roar on his trot around the bases, not a pump of the fist. 

But 36 years after a hobbled Kirk Gibson made the impossible happen in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Freddie Freeman authored the latest iconic World Series-opening blast for the Dodgers, delivering the first walk-off grand slam in the history of the Fall Classic and sending 52,394 fans into a frenzy. 

“I love the history of this game,” Freeman said. “To be a part of it, it’s special. I’ve been playing this game a long time, and to come up in those moments, you dream about those moments, even when you’re 35 and have been in the league for 15 years. You want to be a part of those.”

[RELATED: Full coverage of the World Series]

Freeman joined Gibson and Joe Carter (1993) as the only players to ever hit a walk-off homer in the World Series with their team trailing. 

As he strolled around the bases, having delivered the Dodgers a 6-3 Game 1 comeback victory against the Yankees, Freeman said he felt like he was floating. Teammate Max Muncy, who hit a walk-off homer in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, is one of the few who understands the feeling. 

“You black out in the moment,” Muncy said. “From a personal feeling, you don’t remember a lot of it. I’m going to remember this one a lot more than I remember mine.”

With the Dodgers trailing by a run, down to their final out in the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees intentionally walked Mookie Betts to load the bases and set up the lefty-lefty matchup. 

On the mound was Nestor Cortes, who was added to the playoff roster after missing each of the Yankees’ first two playoff series with an elbow injury. At the plate was Freeman, whose right ankle sprain and bone bruise had produced a hindered version of the eight-time All-Star.

“You walk a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Dodgers infielder Gavin Lux said, “to get to another first-ballot Hall of Famer.” 

Freeman was unable to play in two of the Dodgers’ last three games of the National League Championship Series and held without an extra-base hit through his team’s first two postseason series. But the break before the World Series offered Freeman a needed reprieve. 

Throughout the playoffs, each day produced uncertainty regarding Freeman’s availability. Occasionally, like at team breakfast before Game 4 of the NLDS and the off day before Game 6 of the NLCS, the Dodgers would make the call ahead of time to sit Freeman in his best interest. Often, though, manager Dave Roberts would not know until shortly before first pitch whether he could keep Freeman’s name in the lineup.

He began the playoffs 6-for-17 — all singles — before a 1-for-15 stretch. Over those eight games, he had scored just one run. In Game 1 of the NLCS, he crossed the plate and needed Betts to hold him up to stop his momentum. The more Freeman played, and the longer a series went, the more limiting his ankle became. The issue was starting to leak into his swing. 

“Back then, a week or so ago, I could get through four, five innings before I was having trouble walking,” Freeman said. “In Game 5, it started happening pretty much right after my first at-bat. It was just progressing to making it really hard for me to get through the game.”

The Dodgers made the call to sit him for Game 6 of the NLCS with this scenario in mind. The week off meant six days that Freeman didn’t have to run, which is usually what causes his ankle to flare up. He still got treatment for 3-4 hours a day at the field. The time off helped. Three days ago, Freeman knew he was “100 percent” go. There was no question, in his mind, he would be in the starting lineup. 

“They don’t make them like that guy anymore,” Lux said. “He’s gritty, he’s old school, he wants to be out there. If there’s kids out there that want an idol, that’s the guy you want to try to be like right there.” 

Around that time, watching his swings, his teammates saw a different version of their All-Star first baseman. 

“I mean, you know,” Kiké Hernández said. “You know your teammates. You know their swings. You know their mannerisms. He took BP a couple days ago and it didn’t look the way it looked a couple days prior.” 

Hernández was not alone. Reliever Daniel Hudson was shagging balls in left field during batting practice with Chris Taylor when he noticed Freeman peppering line drives over shortstop and third base. Freeman was starting to look like himself again. 

“CT looks at me and goes, ‘I think Freddie’s about to go off,’” Hudson recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, those are Freddie swings right there.’”

It was at that point that Freeman thought he unlocked a cue in his swing with hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc. It wasn’t necessarily any feats of strength or power that demonstrated it. 

“It’s not about lifting or doing any of that,” Freeman said. “If my swing’s in the right spot and you’re hitting line drives and your swing is in a good spot, that’s where you create backspin. I can’t create the spin. If I do, I’m going to topspin and hook everything. When your swing is good and direct to the ball, that’s how you create the backspin.”

“He runs into power,” Van Scoyoc added. “When he’s on time, he catches it.”

On the first pitch from Cortes, he caught a 92.5 mph fastball on the inner half of the plate and made Dodger Stadium shake. 

“Those are the scenarios you dream about, two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game,” Freeman said. “For it to actually happen and get a home run and walk it off to give us a 1-0 lead, that’s as good as it gets right there.”

After a dogpile with his teammates, Freeman ran behind home plate to celebrate the moment with his father, the man who has thrown him batting practice all his life. 

“My swing is because of him,” Freeman said. “My approach is because of him. I am who I am because of him.”

Three months ago, his father was there to throw to him, too, in the midst of one of the most taxing moments of Freeman’s life. A turbulent second half of the season for Freeman began in late July, when his 3-year-old son Max became suddenly ill. The deterioration was rapid. By July 22, Max could no longer walk. The Freeman family eventually learned Max was suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune condition. Freeman took 10 days away from the team to be with his son, who is now on the road to recovery and back walking again. 

Two days before returning to the Dodgers, the Southern California native went to his former high school, El Modena, and hit on the field with his father. In his first at-bat back at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 5, he received a standing ovation from not only 48,178 fans but also the Phillies dugout. 

“When I was gone the week and a half with my family, that first day I came back, that’s as special as it gets to make my family and I feel the love and the support,” Freeman said. “I tried to reciprocate it that night and thanking them and all this, but I think they appreciate this one a little bit more three months later.”

Tumultuous times off the field were met with hardships on it, when he fractured his finger in August. He decided to play through the pain. He bounced back from a slow start in September with a .316 average over his final 10 games of the regular season, only to sprain his ankle in the Dodgers’ division-clinching game against the Padres on Sept. 26 while trying to avoid a tag from Luis Arráez. It swelled up like a grapefruit, leaving him in a boot as the Dodgers celebrated. He was told it was a 4-6 week injury. 

Ten days later, he was in the lineup for Game 1 of the NLDS, ankles taped up like a football player. 

“He’s doing something that’s basically heroic,” Hernández said.

That night, he not only played but stole a base, as his manager and teammates held their breath. Freeman’s desire to play became a rallying force within the clubhouse of a team that was trying to move beyond the first-round exits of the previous two seasons. 

“A lot of us are banged up,” Lux said, “so you see this guy can barely walk for a couple weeks get out there and still steal bases, run hard down the line, limping all over the place, it makes you want to get out there and play hard, too.” 

For years, the World Series included a Taco Bell “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion.

Before Game 1, Freeman threatened to his teammates that he’d go for it. 

“And we all told him, if you steal a base, we’re going to walk out on the field and take you off the field ourselves,” Muncy said. “Sure enough, he gets a triple.”

Freeman started the day legging out a three-bagger against Cole. He ended it trotting 90 feet further in a walk-off winner for the ages. 

“Might be the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed,” Roberts said. 

“For him to have that moment, with everything he’s been through,” Lux said, “you couldn’t be happier for the guy.”

Right as the grand slam left Freeman’s bat, Hudson looked up from the bullpen toward the banner that shows the exit velocity. It flashed 109. He knew the game was over. 

Not long after, Hudson thought about Gibson’s blast. 

“I was probably one of two people in here who was alive when it happened,” the 37-year-old reliever joked. “You see it on TV, the side-by-sides on social media as soon as it happens. It was a really special moment for all the fans here, for everybody, especially for Freddie. I know that meant a lot to him.” 

At least for a few hours. 

On Friday, Freeman got to the stadium at 10:30 a.m. to begin treatment. 

On Saturday, he’ll do it again. Game 2 awaits. 

“This trophy is what makes you go through the grind every day,” Freeman said. “When you step into spring training in February, your eyes are on that, to do everything you can. That’s what’s worth it for me.”

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.

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