Has Josh done enough to tour?
AFTER the 2019 Rugby World Cup, there was a sense that Josh Adams could play not a single minute of rugby in the next two years and still start on the wing for the Lions in the summer of 2021.
Then he scored a hat-trick against Italy in the opening round of the 2020 Six Nations. At this point, he might as well have rang the concierge at the Lions’ Cape Town hotel and asked them to put his towel down on a poolside sun lounger.
The bookies have had him as an apparent certainty for some time, more so than any other Welshman in fact.
And yet, with just over a week until Warren Gatland reveals his 36-man squad, there is now a sense the man from Hendy may miss out.
Indeed, many pundits are omitting him from their Lions teams, and quite a few from their squad selections altogether.
The likes of James Haskell and Mike Tindall preferred Duhan van der Merwe and England’s Jack Nowell, while there are others also in the equation.
With Liam Williams, Anthony Watson and Stuart Hogg seen as backthree certainties, it’s probable not all of Adams, Jonny May, van der Merwe and Louis Rees-zammit can be accommodated.
So how did Adams slip from the front of the conversation and is he really in danger of missing the tour? The how is relatively simple. Playing in a mix-and-match Wales side that had a shaky set piece and struggled for fluidity, Adams had a quiet autumn.
There were no tries and there was little to shout about, despite his industrious efforts to maraud off his wing and try to get himself involved in the games.
But, through little fault of his own, he was largely a bystander.
At regional level, he has scored two tries in seven matches this season, his first and his last games of the 2020-21 campaign.
Then came the suspension that saw him miss Wales’s opening two Six Nations matches after breaching Covid-19 guidelines.
Prior to his misdemeanour, Adams had played 11 games for region and country, scoring just one try, and he would now be stuck on the sidelines.
After a scintillating 2019, Adams suffered something of a hangover in 2020, and 2021 had got off to an inauspicious start.
The Six Nations before any Lions tour is crucial. Gatland places huge stock in the matches and you can really play your way in or out of the tour in those five matches.
Adams will have been acutely aware of this and came haring into the competition for the third game against England.
Despite being short of form and having gone over a month without a game, Adams got stuck into the championship.
He scored a try in every game he played, averaged more metres per carry than Lions rivals May and Keith Earls, whilst carrying more per game than Louis Rees-zammit, Anthony Watson and Earls.
Adams lagged behind his rivals in terms of clean breaks and van der Merwe jumps off the page with ball in hand, carrying more and making more metres per carry than any other winger in Lions contention. He also finished as the tournament’s top tryscorer with five.
Rees-zammit made more breaks than the rest but, on average, Adams’s attacking statistics were competitive at the very least.
Defensively, he is astute.
Unquestionably, Rees-zammit and van der Merwe lit up the Six Nations with the ball but, without it, they made errors that will not go down well with Gatland and perhaps there was a touch of inexperience coming to the fore.
Ireland’s James Lowe in particular had a torrid tournament in defence.
Adams, however, reads the game superbly well during opposition attacks and there is a portfolio of examples during his international career where he has made try-saving, split-second decisions. Gatland will remember those. What Gatland will also remember is a player who scored 11 tries in 21 Wales Test matches for him between the summer of 2018 and the end of 2019.
The Kiwi will recall Adams being a top try-scorer for him at the last Rugby World Cup, breaking Shane Williams’s Wales record in the process.
So should Adams be expecting to work in South Africa this summer?
In a deeply competitive department nothing is a given, but there is a strong case for Adams, along with someone like Watson, being earmarked as the most rounded option available.
He rarely needs a second invitation when an opportunity presents itself, as evidenced by his devilishly difficult finish for the Blues against London Irish recently.
Under the high ball there are few issues, he kicks well enough and there are few problems with his defence.
He is one of rugby’s good guys, universally liked and will, in all probability, be a hit in the team room.
The way he has been largely overlooked in selection debates recently has been surprising.
Is he one of the four best wingers at Gatland’s disposal? With 17 tries in 32 Tests, it would come as a shock if the former Wales boss thought he wasn’t.