Jenkins’ impressive return gives Pivac options for captain
Wales may have lost on Saturday, but when you consider the players they were without against South Africa – Alun Wyn Jones, Josh Navidi, Ken Owens, Justin Tipuric to name a few – you could forgive Wayne Pivac for focusing on the positives.
And there was no brighter shining light than the performance of Ellis Jenkins, making his first Test appearance in three years, with the majority of that time spent battling his way back from a serious knee ligament injury.
Jenkins was enormous, bailing Wales out in defence twice in the first half with a penalty and interception, and his breakdown work throughout was as good as anything South Africa produced.
Taking over the captaincy once Jonathan Davies left the field capped a day to be proud of, even if Jenkins, speaking afterwards, was not quite ready to think about the defeat that way just yet.
“My family, my girlfriend, my best mates were all here and you could see how much it meant to all of them. That’s a part of it people don’t see. It was really nice to have everyone there. It would have been nice to have finished off with a win.”
Without Jones around for the rest of the autumn and the Six Nations, Wales are certainly in need of new leaders in the pack. On the basis of Saturday’s game, if the flanker can keep his place in the side once Navidi and Tipuric are fit again then Jenkins looks the part.
He was spotted speaking to South Africa’s Siya Kolisi after the final whistle and the duo are closer than many may realise, with Kolisi sending Jenkins his Springbok jersey after the Welshman’s was injured when the two sides last faced each other in 2018.
“He’s obviously a great guy, isn’t he, Siya. He just said, ‘It’s great to see you back’. He was just saying how happy he was that I was back and how much he enjoys playing against me – I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
Wales, it has to be said, were miles better than when they faced New Zealand the previous week. The wet, grim conditions were made for Dan Biggar’s controlled approach at outside-half, and it was a surprise to see him taken off.
The line-out also improved, missing just one of 15 throws, after last week’s fluffed set-pieces in key positions hurt Wales.
They certainly deserved to be ahead 12-9 at the break, thanks to Biggar’s boot landing four penalties. But South Africa’s scrum and rolling mauls off the line-out were just far too powerful for Wales and those threats, in the end, struck the decisive blow.
Pivac recognised afterwards what a disaster that was for the Wales game plan, with the scrum penalties feeding South Africa’s maul. “I think they got a penalty on each of their feeds,” Pivac said. “It’s a side of a game where we didn’t want to give them ins. We obviously talked about it but that’s an area we need to go away and improve on.”
The less said about the spectator who ran on to the field when Wales were attacking the better. Liam Williams was unlikely to score from there with South Africa’s defence covering across, but it also undoubtedly messed up his timing, as he was forced to spin out the way of the intruder, who was tackled to the turf by two stadium officials.
South Africa missed scrum-half Faf de Klerk dearly, with his deputy, Herschel Jantjies, struggling to execute the box-kicking game plan in the wet, but in the end they found a way through their maul, finished off by Malcolm Marx.
They might have finished further ahead had a Makazole Mapimpi try not been chalked off, after South Africa’s forwards were ruled to be in front of the kicker. But the Springboks did enough, just, for their first win in Wales in eight years.