WE HAVE TO LEARN THE LESSONS OF ANOTHER NZ HAMMERING
SEVERAL lessons emerged from Wales’ defeat to New Zealand which I hope will be learned for the future. The first is don’t play New Zealand outside of the international window with a weakened squad and hope for a close contest.
The second is the need for Wayne Pivac and his Welsh coaching staff to be shrewder in terms of how they manage this type of game.
The third is the lack of genuine quality that exists on the periphery of Wales’ so-called first-choice team.
And the fourth is the competition most of the Welsh players compete in week-in, week-out leaves them woefully under-prepared for the rigours of Test match rugby at the very top level.
And how long have we been saying that?
There is little point dwelling on the gulf in class between the two sides on Saturday. It was blindingly obvious. New Zealand were more physical and quicker in thought and deed in every department.
I get all the arguments about the need for the Welsh Rugby Union to generate money for the cashstrapped game by staging this match, but Wales playing the All Blacks under these circumstances is never going to generate a proper competitive spectacle.
If people are happy to buy tickets and go in that context, and simply marvel at the all-court New Zealand game, then that’s up to them.
But I wonder just how long you can market a sporting event in that guise.
There are surely other teams Wales can be looking at to arrange fixtures against out of the official window.
What unfolded was what everyone expected, a 50-pointer, but as sobering as the result was, Wales didn’t help themselves either.
Under Pivac Wales have now lost 10 out 19 games, and, in my opinion, they were lucky in the last Six Nations.
I’m not saying they weren’t worthy champions, but several games went their way with red cards.
On Saturday, I thought Pivac missed a trick by not starting Rhys Priestland at fly-half when he is clearly the form player in Wales in that position. When he came on the confidence he brought with him was there for all to see.
Instead Gareth Anscombe started, but it was always going to be a daunting ask of a player who hadn’t played international rugby for two years.
To compound matters, Beauden Barrett intercepted him for the opening try, which would have planted a negative seed in Anscombe’s mind from the off.
I feel it would have been better to let Anscombe size up the game from the bench and come on later. He’s
done that to good effect in the past when he’s replaced Dan Biggar. So that was a poor call from Pivac.
Then there was the use of substitutes. While New Zealand were given added impetus in the closing stages by theirs, Wales were weakened by the changes they made. So why make them?
Why bring Rhys Carre and Dillon Lewis on in the front row? Carre hasn’t developed as I hoped he would and Lewis has had problems at the set-piece historically.
Wales got worse through making those switches and I cannot see why Wyn Jones and Tomas Francis were hooked if they weren’t injured. Just leave them on, it comes across as a pre-planned swap that serves no positive purpose.
Why put Ben Thomas on in the 67th minute as well? What realistically was he going to be able to do during a period when Wales were being battered? It would have done nothing for his development or his confidence.
What also disappointed me was seeing Wales’ regression at the lineout. This is what I mean about the lack of depth in terms of quality.
A year ago, during the Autumn Nations Cup, Wales had problems at the line-out when Ryan Elias was at hooker. I saw no evidence of any improvement in the space of the last year with him in for the injured Ken Owens.
Wales made an already nigh-on impossible task even harder by messing up the line-out against the All Blacks, with Elias’ throwing inaccuracy part of the problem.
When you consider that Jonathan Humphreys is Wales’ forwards coach, a man who spent his career at hooker, you wonder why there wasn’t more evidence of progress.
Elias was replaced by Kirby Myhill later in the game, but I’m sorry, for me, Myhill just isn’t international quality. So again, why put him on if you don’t really need to?
I was also disappointed with Seb Davies and the way he was utilised. He’s a talented and versatile player, but when he came on for Ross Moriarty he had a real chance to impose himself.
But Wales lost something with his introduction. Davies is a second row first and foremost who can help out in the back row. His lack of impact exposed the limited options Pivac had at loose forward in his match 23.
On a positive note, Taine Basham received plaudits from a number of quarters and I’d agree with that.
I won’t over-complicate my appraisal of him, I just thought for someone who was making his first international start he took it to the All Blacks in a fearless yet composed way. He offered channelled aggression and I hope he gets another chance next week against South Africa.
The Springboks will pose a different challenge. It won’t be as fast and intense for Wales as it was against New Zealand, but it is likely to be more physical.
I think Wales will get closer to them on the scoreboard with players coming back in and the New Zealand match under their belts, but I still expect the Boks to prevail with something to spare.
So it looks like being a familiar autumn pattern.
For all the trumpeting of the launch of the new United Rugby Championship and the introduction of South African sides, as a bread-and-butter competition for our players it still lacks identity and intensity – as the
Celtic leagues in their various forms always have.
I still don’t see the edge required to prepare players for the heat of Test battle, it’s not even there in the Welsh regional derbies.
I say derbies, but I use that term in its loosest sense. Even the Judgement Day event has a contrived and hollow feel to it for me.
I don’t want to be accused of harking back in time, but when I played in local derbies I worked on a factory production line in Cwmbran. Half of the workforce were Newport fans, half were Pontypool fans.
On the Monday morning after that fixture…. well, let’s just say that’s when you learned the true meaning of the phrase “bragging rights”.
So, as the autumn series unfolds, these are the lessons we must still learn in Welsh rugby.
I just wonder how long it will take.