Wales aim to end on cloud nine
WARREN GATLAND and Wales are fired up to become history boys tonight in Cardiff, treating their final autumn Test against South Africa as a Grand Slam game.
Head coach Gatland will not have this feeling again. Neither will many of his Welsh players. Over Gatland’s decade they have won two spring Slams in the Six Nations — but never swept a series in November. It would also be a ninth Test win on the trot.
Now drinking in the last-chance saloon with Wales, Gatland and his squad want to toast an unbeaten month come full time at the Principality Stadium.
‘It’s like a finals situation,’ said Gatland. ‘The players are pretty aware of it. I haven’t had to say anything. It makes the coaches’ job easy. They know they can do something special.
‘It’s like when you play the last game of a Six Nations for a Grand Slam. There is no lack of motivation for that. It hasn’t been done before and a clean sweep in the autumn would be pretty special.
‘They are very well aware of what that means and the consequences for us as a team going forward.’
On this run of eight consecutive wins a harsh critic would say that Wales have not yet beaten a good side, fully fledged and flying — certainly since the Six Nations.
After home wins against Italy and France, they played a heavily rotated Springboks and changed many themselves in a ‘Test’ match in Washington DC.
They beat a struggling Argentina twice, who then sacked their coach, before coming home to see off Scotland without Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg and a Tonga side that had barely met before the game.
Between that was the wobbly Wallabies — but that was a win with historical significance, being the first against Australia in 14 attempts. Nevertheless, only two Welsh sides have ever won more in a row, so a ninth win would be quite something.
‘If no one talks about us it doesn’t really affect us,’ said centre Jonathan Davies. ‘I don’t think boys are crying out for attention. It doesn’t bother us. There’s expectancy on us to go out there and get a result, but we don’t feel the pressure.’
And despite their run of three without defeat against the Boks, Davies knows this final autumn foray will be a proper battle.
‘You look at South Africa’s performances over the last 12 months, they have certainly improved a lot,’ he added.
‘They ran New Zealand close. They are extremely physical and it will be a lot tougher task than the last few times we have played against them.’
South Africa’s captain Siya Kolisi is free to play despite head-butting Scotland back Peter Horne last week, and he defended his disciplinary record.
‘I would never do something on purpose to hurt someone else,’ he said. ‘I have been chilled, it wasn’t in my hands. I always respect what World Rugby says. I waited and when they told me (I wasn’t banned) I was obviously very happy.’
And the 27-year-old flanker knows he will have his hands full today as he rates the Welsh as one of the best teams in the world.
‘They work hard for one another and they’re well coached as well,’ he said. ‘They believe in what they’re doing and it shows, they’ve won eight in a row. Something massive has changed. A lot of their senior players are back and the guys who have been given opportunities are taking them more.
‘It’s a challenge, their pack is good, they’re a very aggressive side, they’ll be different to anything we’ve faced on our tour.’
The last two occasions the Boks have come to Cardiff they have been in various circles of hell — but having risen like a Phoenix from the ashes, by beating England and the All Blacks this year, they have doused those engulfing flames.
Kolisi notes the change with firefighter Rassie Erasmus in charge. ‘The way we do things is different,’ he said. ‘How hard we work for each other. We have a different coaching staff, they have changed quite a lot of things. We work a lot harder than we did and we believe a lot more than we did.
‘Rassie made us realise what’s important, it’s being a Springbok, rather than you as an individual. Everything you do, you do for the Springboks.’