The world will be unsung side with
NOT even the South African chambermaid could resist joining in the fun at Wales’s expense all those years ago, saying the morning after the record hiding the day before: “You Welsh are not very good at rugby, are you?”
This was the same woman who had failed to read the Do Not Disturb sign on no fewer than three occasions in the same week, knocking that urgently on the door it appeared a dawn police raid was in progress.
But her point couldn’t really be countered about the rugby, not when it was made the day after Wales had subsided 96-13 to the Springboks. In the press conferences that followed, South Africa’s then coach Nick Mallett famously dismissed the tourists as the worst international side he had seen.
The mood has been a bit different in Cardiff this week.
South Africa’s current team boss Rassie Erasmus has feted Wales as world rugby’s silent assassins, with Warren Gatland’s team looking to extend an eight-game winning run that includes seven victories over tier-one opponents.
“While all four Tests on this tour are tough, this will be the hardest,” said Erasmus.
Should we expect Gatland to be flattered? No, we should not.
An opposition coach dishing out pre-game compliments is hardly a rarity in international rugby. Once in a while, about as often as Halley’s Comet visits these parts maybe, such remarks truly mean something.
The rest of the time they are designed to fire up the speaker’s own players while lulling the opposition into a false sense of security.
Not a lifetime ago, England threw out so many plaudits ahead of a game with Wales there was mild surprise when the Red Rose team management didn’t opt to spend their holidays en masse in Trecco Bay that summer.
Maybe Erasmus was sincere this time, but experienced coaches – and Gatland is undoubtedly one – understand that it is better to take all pre-match comments from a rival camp with a Siberian-sized pinch of salt. And, anyway, it is arguable that, in a wider sense, Gatland’s team are still not getting the credit they deserve.
The focus this month has pretty much all been on Ireland, New Zealand, England and South Africa as serious World Cup contenders, with few mentions of Wales.
Maybe it’s their long losing sequence against New Zealand that leads some to conclude they can’t take the ultimate step forward in rugby, but in the past three years or so they have beaten every other leading nation bar the Kiwis.
Still that hasn’t stopped bookmakers from making them only sixth favourites for the global tournament.
None of which will bother their head coach. Wales’s passage to the semi-finals in 2011 owed much to the team flying so far under the radar they might have clipped a few chimney pots en route.
For sure, Gatland would be more than happy for them to have that same unheralded status heading for Japan. At his team announcement this week he was asked whether Wales were receiving sufficient plaudits for their efforts. “I don’t really care. We are just getting on with our business,” came the reply.
“We’re not worried at all what anyone else is saying about us or thinking.”
Being unsung isn’t always a bad thing for a sports side.
But the certainty is many would sit up and take notice were Wales able to down South Africa for the second time this year.
For the Springboks’ class of 2018 are a serious side, good enough to have beaten the All Blacks in New Zealand. They have also tamed England over a series and beaten Australia, Argentina, France and Scotland. In short, under Erasmus, they have become a force once more.
Victory over them at close on full strength would turbo-charge Welsh self-belief.
But it will take some doing.
For South Africa have not just rediscovered their old physicality that enables them to squeeze sides up front via the kind of muscle that would prompt small armies to head for the hills, with Steven Kitshoff and Frans Malherbe two immensely-powerful props and Franco Mostert and RG Snyman giant locks good enough to keep Eben Etzebeth on the bench.
That’s the same Eben Etzebeth, by the way, who has trained with 75kg (11st 11lb) dumbbells in the past, presumably after nicking a can or two of spinach from Popeye.
They also carry in their team razor-sharp runners such as Willie Le Roux, Sbu Nkosi and Aphiwi Dyantyi, strong centres in Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende and a fly-half in Handre Pollard who makes good decisions and few mistakes.
Their back row is also not too shabby and Malcolm Marx is probably the leading hooker in the world, even if his display earlier this month against England suggested his Eric Bristow tribute act needs a bit of attention, with throws going everywhere but to South African players.
Faced with all that, Wales have to front up physically.
Do that and they can then think about imposing their own game on proceedings.
Gatland’s team are not without threats themselves.
Indeed, they have a backline that bristles with attacking promise – from Liam Williams, George North and Josh Adams offering pace and skill in the back three, to the hard-run-