POOR DEFENCE AND LACK OF POWER NEED TO BE LOOKED AT
MAYBE all those pats on the back did actually weaken England after their World Cup semi-final victory over New Zealand. Or maybe they just encountered in South Africa in the final a team who had more power and simply saved their best until last.
Whatever, it was ultimately disappointment for Eddie Jones’s side, with Warren Gatland being proved right that they “played their final” with their effort against the All Blacks.
That’s something for Jones, with his sharp press-conference putdowns, to mull over after his team’s 32-12 thrashing when it truly mattered.
In fairness, England did superbly to get to the final.
But they couldn’t deal with a Springboks side who imposed themselves from the first whistle.
Is there much for new Wales coach Wayne Pivac to learn from South Africa’s triumph?
MARK ORDERS takes a look...
THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFENCE A few months ago, suggesting Wales try to improve their defence would have been akin to urging Einstein to buck up his ideas on theoretical physics or telling D’Artagnan he needed to sharpen up in the swordfencing department.
Defence was what Wales were good at under Shaun Edwards.
Players took their cues from his ‘been there, seen it, done it, got the bruises to show for it’ outlook.
No messing about. No calling a spade a subterranean digging implement.
Edwards told it as it was, players responded to him and Wales were acknowledged as having the toughest defence in the game to break down.
But something went awry in that area during the World Cup.
They missed 163 tackles in seven outings, an average of more than 23 a match. Against Australia, Fiji and New Zealand, a total of 97 hits were unsuccessful, while for long periods against France, Welsh defenders struggled to contain the men in blue.
By the time of the All Blacks game, a number of Wales players looked spent in defence, with New Zealand making 21 clean breaks and running in six tries.
In a number of areas Wales’s tackling tailed off. The contrast with South Africa was stark.
During the knockout stage they didn’t drop below an 85 percent completion rate. Against Wales in the semi-final it was up to 93 percent.
Nor was it just the number of hits they made. It was the crushing nature of many of the contacts, with opposition ball-carriers being smashed back behind the gain-line.
It helps to have big forwards to do the smashing.
But South Africa also employ ferocious line-speed, with the likes of Faf de Klerk and Damian De Allende frequently catching opponents unaware.
In the likes of Alun Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric, Taulupe Faletau, Jake Ball and Josh Navidi, Wales have a core of top-drawer defenders.
But others need to get back to their best quickly under Pivac, because an uncompromising defence is the foundation for pretty much every successful team.
POWER SHORTAGE
It was Paul O’Connell who noted after Wales had lost in the semi-finals that they were at a disadvantage compared to some of the other leading teams in world rugby.
“It’s hard for Wales,” O’Connell.
“They are not as big a side as South Africa, New Zealand or England, so it’s very hard for them to win collisions.”
It’s an old story.
A few decades ago, the talk in many rugby clubs was about the lack of genuinely big men to fill the Wales pack. The 6ft 8in London Welsh lock Chris Howcroft was mooted as a possible answer to the problem back then, while a few years later Neath’s Andrew Kembery was touted for honours because he was of similar height and bulk.
For a variety of reasons neither won a full cap.
But the problem has pretty much always been there. said
Invention, skill and the sheer ability to find a way often got Wales through.
They found a way against Australia and France at this World Cup, too.
But when they came up against South Africa the power deficit told.
Think Duane Vermeulen bulldozing Tomas Francis backwards; one example, but others could be found. Skill matters hugely.
But the holy grail is to find the right blend between power and finesse.
Wales still look light on the power part of the equation up front.
SET-PIECE
A tea-leaf reader wasn’t needed to foresee how the World Cup final would go when South Africa drove England back at a scrum in the first minutes.
They stayed on the same beat pretty much throughout the game and finished by forcing five penalties out of their opponents in that area while conceding just one themselves.
It was uncompromising and England couldn’t handle it, though they weren’t helped by the early loss of Kyle Sinckler to injury.
South Africa have used their setpiece to underpin their march to the Webb Ellis Cup, regularly forcing penalties out of opponents.
For Wales’s starting props Wyn Jones and Tomas Francis to transgress just once in the semi-final was a solid effort given that England’s front-rowers were pinged five times between them.
But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea for Wayne Pivac to find some strong-scrummaging back-up.
How good is Sale tight-head WillGriff John? At 6ft 2in and 21st and reportedly able to bench-press 210kg (or 33st in old money), he might be worth a look as Welsh rugby’s new era begins.
At the very least, he’d be able to give the team bus a push if it broke down en route to a game.
Is there life still in Samson Lee and Rob Evans? Pivac will surely know the answer to that one.
Can Nicky Smith rediscover himself after a quiet World Cup when he rarely seemed to be on the field at the same time with the strong-scrummaging Francis on the other side? Is Rhodri Jones, now focusing exclusively on the loose-head role at the Ospreys, worth checking out once again?
It’s all about building a pool of props.
That will be a key challenge for Pivac’s forwards coach Jonathan Humphreys.
DEPTH
Once South Africa started bringing on the likes of Steven Kitshoff, Malcolm Marx, Vincent Koch and Francois Louw in the final, it was only a question of time before the Springboks pulled away.
There is no forward bench in world rugby to compete with the one at Rassie Erasmus’s disposal.
If opponents are sending on players who are not quite up to scratch for the final 20 minutes, the likelihood is that immense and unrelent