New blood and hard edge: how Wales have bounced back

► Wayne Pivac’s side have been transformed since a dismal autumn and now stand on the brink of a historic Grand Slam

To understand how Wales have come to the brink of one of the most remarkable achievements in their proud rugby history, it is necessary to spool back four months, and the lowest ebb in the post-warren Gatland era.

When Wayne Pivac sat down to address the media before his team’s Autumn Nations Cup game against Ireland four months ago, he was a man under siege. Wales had lost five Tests in a row, their worst run in four years, defence coach Byron Hayward had been sacked three days earlier and there were rumours of player unrest which Pivac and his captain, Alun Wyn Jones, felt obliged to deny. “I’m not seeing that and if it is [there] then the players are very good at hiding it,” he said.

Even the most ardent Wales supporter would have struggled to believe that analysis. But, as Pivac and his players attempt to close out an unparalleled fifth Six Nations Grand Slam this century in Paris, it seems they knew something we did not.

In hindsight, that dismal Autumn Nations Cup campaign – in which Wales were well beaten by the three top nations they faced – was a crucial, if painful, period of development which prepared them for what has been a spectacular spring.

Last autumn, with some key starters injured, Pivac and his coaching staff opted to cast the net and blood new caps. The whole squad, young and old, were still adapting to a more adventurous attacking blueprint under Pivac and assistant coach Stephen Jones, and a new defensive system after more than a decade under Shaun Edwards. The latter seemed more problematic, particularly in the light of Hayward’s departure, but Pivac moved swiftly to replace him with former Wales prop Gethin Jenkins.

Eight new caps were handed out to Sam Parry, Shane Lewis-hughes, James Botham, Kieran Hardy, Ioan Lloyd, Callum Sheedy, Johnny Williams and Louis Rees-zammit, with three of that group – Rees-zammit, Botham and Sheedy – in today’s squad to face France.

Their arrivals were enforced through injury but ended up refreshing the squad. Rees-zammit has been the breakout star of the Six Nations, while Sheedy, the dynamic fly-half, has worked well coming off the bench in tandem with Dan Biggar, just as the latter did with Gareth Anscombe when Wales won the Grand Slam two years ago.

Neither was weighed down by baggage, and they have lightened the mood in camp. Sheedy breezily admitted this week that in the past when Wales have been in this position, he was “the guy getting drunk at the pub, watching and cheering”, adding: “It’s really special for me to be a part of this but it’s all happening so fast I haven’t had time to think about it.”

Of course, Wales’s road to the brink of their 13th Grand Slam – a tally which would draw them level with England – has been far from straightforward, even in this Six Nations. Had they lost those opening matches to Ireland and Scotland – hardly an outlandish suggestion given how tight both were – Pivac’s strategies would have faced another wave of criticism. Given how things have panned out, instead there is only one place where that scenario belongs: in the bin.

“We kept on saying all the way through the autumn what the campaign was about, but nobody wanted to listen,” Wales forwards coach Jonathan Humphreys said. “We took the Autumn Nations Cup to be something else and said – we couldn’t have shouted it any louder – this is about building depth. We can’t control what is said outside of that, but we had belief coming into the Six Nations that if we picked our best team available, we would be a very competitive team.

“On top of that, the people who had that experience of playing in the autumn have been invaluable for us and allowed us to create momentum. This Six Nations was always about winning. Thankfully we managed to get through those first two games to get us on our way.”

For Pivac, who oversaw a tricky start at Scarlets while his attacking approach sunk in before ultimately claiming a Pro14 title in 2017, he was in familiar territory.

“It goes with the territory, doesn’t it?” Pivac concedes regarding the criticism he has faced. “The same thing happened with the Scarlets. It took me a while to get that machine rolling, and ultimately we had some success. Look, people will always have their opinions, and rightly so – they support the team and put a lot of faith in what we do. So if things don’t go well, questions get asked.”

Along with continuing to adapt to Pivac’s training methods, you can pin this revival by Wales on three things. First, the return of Ken Owens and Josh Navidi in the pack has been enormous, with Navidi’s physicality and work rate giving Wales something extra at the breakdown.

Wales at one point in this campaign had six fit centres to choose from and yet the starting midfield pairing now feels ironclad, with Jonathan Davies partnering a former winger in George North. That combination is in its infancy but hardly lacks for caps, or class.

Finally, Wales’s set-piece is in a different realm compared to four months ago, largely thanks to Owens’ return to fix the line-out combined with the return to form of lock Adam Beard, the line-out caller. Wales’s success rate in that area compared to the autumn is up by 15 per cent, and their scrum by an even more staggering 24 per cent.

You can see why Pivac highlighted the strides made at the setpiece as being the biggest area of progress for Wales in this Six Nations, mainly because of how much a functioning set-piece affects the other areas of their game.

“In the autumn there was a lot of rotation, we were learning about players, and that was a conscious

effort to do that, which came with a bit of pain. Certainly our scrum is improving, the discipline. Our shape is really good, we’re working together. The line-out has obviously improved,” Pivac explains. “So the set-piece is a big one, because when that’s not functioning as well as you’d like, as we saw in the autumn, it puts a lot of pressure on your attack and conversely gives a lot of ball to the opposition, so your defence is overworked.

“That is probably the big thing, and obviously our defence has tightened up as well, and you wrap it all up with good discipline.”

In terms of the defence, the arrival of Jenkins has been pivotal, with seasoned observers such as Sam Warburton noticing an uplift in Wales’s tackling intensity.

“He’s definitely added a physical element to their games that I think they might have been missing in the 12 months prior,” the former captain observed after the 25-24 win over Scotland last month.

At Wales’s lowest point in the autumn, did Pivac ever question whether his approach was the right one? For the man himself, the focus was always on the long term.

“There were a lot of circumstances which we put in place which didn’t help the results – we’re aware of that, but we had a big picture in mind, which was the 2023 Rugby World Cup,” he said. “As coaches, when you’ve been doing it a while you draw back on experiences. It might be at different levels, but I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with some pretty good teams and had some pretty good results. You draw on those.

“There are always highs and lows, you just have to make sure there are more highs, I guess.

“It wasn’t for a lack of hard work. This group of coaches have kept believing, and the players also. As I said throughout the autumn, I would be more concerned if it wasn’t a happy camp. You look at the environment that you have off the field and that speaks volumes of where the team is at.”

So, by sticking to their guns, Wales are on the cusp of another clean sweep. They roll into Paris having scored more points and tries on average than the rest of the Six Nations sides while also making more tackles and conceding the fewest turnovers.

The team who looked lost just months ago are on the verge of the most extraordinary of Grand Slams. It is a testimony to patience and belief in your processes when others have written you off.