Joe Rodon: These are the teams we want to be playing

Leeds United defender Joe Rodon won his 55th cap for Wales yesterday evening as the Dragons faced England at Wembley.

The centre-back played the full 90 minutes for Craig Bellamy’s side in the defeat against Thomas Tuchel’s Three Lions, lining up alongside Whites’ skipper Ethan Ampadu and goalkeeper Karl Darlow.

Despite the result under the arch, Rodon believes there is a lot Wales can take from the match as attentions turn to Monday’s crucial World Cup Qualifier with familiar foe Belgium.

“Overall, it is a big learning experience for us," he told Welsh broadcaster S4C after the full-time whistle.

“It shows the level where we want to get to, where we want to keep improving and these are the teams we want to keep playing because otherwise you don’t learn anything.

“The first two goals, set pieces, that is not us. We have to be more resilient and way harder to break down and, of course, the first half wasn’t our best performance. We showed some good parts in the second half.

“It makes us way better as a team now we go back, look at it and it is only going to improve us going forward.

“In the Nations League Group A, this is where we want to be and these are the teams we want to be playing. We have got to learn from it and move on.

“When you play against top teams you get punished for these mistakes but it isn’t something we can dwell on, we have got a massive game on Monday.

“We are all looking forward to it so we will just get back, recover and get ready to go again on Monday.”