WE’RE OFF AND RUNNING...
Scots are sent packing in autumn opener but can Wales now finally break their Wallabies hoodoo?
JUSTIN Tipuric responded to questions about his man-ofthe-match performance for Wales against Scotland by talking about the team effort, with “everyone from one to 15 putting in a shift”.
The flanker could never be accused of being a glory hunter.
Churchill once described his political foe Clement Attlee as being a modest man with much to be modest about.
By contrast, Tipuric has a lot to be self-aggrandizing about, but would never take the opportunity to laud himself. It isn’t his style. It isn’t the way things are done in his home village of Trebanos.
But at 29 he is at the peak of his powers.
In Saturday’s encounter in Cardiff, the 58-cap openside was a senior player who accepted responsibility with relish.
Thirteen of his 14 tackles were on big Scottish forwards, including three hits on the 6ft 6in, 18st 10lb Jonny Gray and two on would-be sheep farmer WP Nel, who tips the scales at a spud or two under 19st.
One of those contacts on the squat prop lifted him clean off his feet. There was no waiting for others to step up. Tipuric rolled up his sleeves and did the job himself.
Picking him out as the game’s best player, Martyn Williams said: “He has covered every blade of grass. He’s been outstanding.”
It was hard to disagree.
The openside put in the first Welsh tackle after 36 seconds, going on to run the defence as if it were a military operation, cajoling those around him, thinking ahead and anticipating where the next bushfire might break out.
On a number of occasions it was the Osprey who tracked back to tidy up, notably when assisting George North after George Horne had scampered through. For a split second it appeared North might be in trouble, only for his regional teammate to provide an outlet.
And yet. Had Sam Warburton not retired as a player and had Taulupe Faletau stayed fit, it is debatable whether Tipuric would have been in the starting line-up for the game with the Scots. Thirty of his caps for Wales have been won off the bench, after all.
He would probably have had to be content with a bench role for the game with Australia this coming weekend, too.
But the cards have fallen for him and form is being rewarded.
He has been man of the match in three out of the seven games he has played this season and at one point in the campaign, Opta pointed out that he had been involved in 46 percent of the Ospreys’ tries.
“He is the complete player,” another native of Trebanos, former Neath and Swansea scrum-half Rhodri Jones, said recently.
“I sometimes think Beauden Barrett would be happy to put in some of the passes and runs that Justin puts in,” said Jones.
“But Justin also puts in 20 tackles or so a game, gets battered at the bottom of rucks, slows down opposition possession and snaffles turnovers. “Wales are lucky to have him.” Michael Hooper and David Pocock are next up, the acid test for any opposition back row. And that’s the challenge that is likely to face Wales against Australia on Saturday assuming Warren Gatland declines to tinker with that area of his side.
Dan Lydiate and Ross Moriarty provided hard-working support at the Principality Stadium, sharing 47 tackles between them.
Moriarty is now up to 102 hits in his last five Tests, many of them dominant contacts that kill moves. He may have a hot head, but he also has a voracious appetite for hard work.
And it was good to see Lydiate back in the old routine.
Beset by injuries, he could so easily have been content to accept that his days as a Test player were done. He would have read about all the other back-rowers who were emerging in Wales, who had suddenly given the national team such strength in depth. No one could have blamed him had he reasoned that his time in the sun was over.
But he had a big game against Scotland, one that even featured a turnover from the former Dragon.
Early on it was Lydiate who most frequently acted as the red light that stopped Scottish ball carriers dead in their tracks.
Sacrificed in the reshuffle that followed Elliot Dee’s yellow card in the 70th minute, he had piled up 23 tackles by that point in a display that would have pleased Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards. Back rows are about balance and at its core rugby is about physicality and attitude. Lydiate has never lacked on those latter two qualities.
He is 31 next month, but, maybe, just maybe, there’s a big chapter or two of his career still to be written.
Other Lions stood up to be counted — the physical Ken Owens, the warrior-like Alun Wyn Jones, the tryscoring George North and Jonathan Davies and the flawless Leigh Halfpenny.
Elsewhere, Gareth Anscombe set up two tries with lovely passes, but Welsh kicking from half-back was mixed, and that’s putting it kindly.
Hadleigh Parkes missed too many tackles and new boy Luke Morgan didn’t receive a pass until the 65th minute.
Should the diminutive wing have gone looking for the ball? Had he
done so and left gaps out wide on his debut, criticism would have rained in.
But he defended well and so there was something for him to cling onto.
Hamish Watson was excellent for Scotland, but their midfield defence was poor and they didn’t achieve the scrum dominance they might have hoped for.
Two moments of clinical finishing defeated them.
A match of sunshine and showers, then.
Wales will have to up their game to beat Australia, but there are players coming back.
Saturday was the first time in 16 years for them to start an autumn series with a win.
But the sequence they most want to end is the 13 straight defeats they have suffered against the Wallabies.
The law of average suggests the run has to be halted some time.
But Wales need to make it happen. No one else can do it for them.