HOWLEY’S HORRORS
Spineless Wales routed as Foley puts on masterclass
FOR about 10 second-half minutes Wales resembled a team worthy of wearing this great rugby nation’s famous red jersey. For the other 70, they were woeful.
Australia out-passed Wales, outmuscled them, out-kicked them and outthought them in a one-sided affair which will send alarm bells ringing around the Principality, not to mention the money men at the Welsh Rugby Union.
Almost 20,000 empty seats were left inside the Millennium Stadium for what, on paper, was the most compelling match of this four-game Under Armour Series.
With Argentina, Japan and South Africa to come, it is hard to know why any Welsh fans would pitch up to watch their team offer so little. It really was that bad.
Yes, Wales were missing several key players through injury and absence, including Sam Warburton, Toby Faletau, Alun Wyn Jones and Jonathan Davies, who pulled out shortly before kick-off with a hamstring injury. But that cannot possibly excuse the lack of passion, precision and tactical direction on display. Some of Wales tackling and defensive organisation was truly dire as they suffered their heaviest home defeat in a decade. It would be unfair to heap all the blame on stand-in coach Rob Howley, but it is hard to believe Warren Gatland — on secondment with the Lions — would have allowed such a staggeringly flat display. Only when Howley sent on a raft of second-half substitutions — including moving debutant Sam Davies to fly-half in place of the ineffective and petulant Dan Biggar — did Wales offer anything remotely close to serious resistance, while their attacking play also perked up. But it was far too little, too late. By the time outside centre Scott Williams dived on his own grubber kick to score what was admittedly an excellent try after 68 minutes, the game was long gone for the Welsh.
In front of a disappointing crowd of 55,776, Australia — who were whitewashed 3-0 by England in the summer — had looked sharper, more direct and better organised.
Some of the Wallaby handling was wonderfully crisp, while the running lines of centres Reece Hodge and Tevita Kuridrani repeatedly cut the Welsh defence to ribbons.
With Australia fly-half Bernard Foley enjoying one of his worldclass days with ball in hand, similar to the one that destroyed England in last year’s World Cup, Michael Cheika’s men ran in three first-half tries as Wales were left chasing shadows.
‘We’re disappointed and frustrated,’ said a dejected Howley.
‘That was not was we expected. We never had a foothold in the game against a very cohesive side. We made a number of defensive errors and it cost us.’
Stephen Moore crossed for the first Australia try after 12 minutes following feeble Welsh defence of a driving maul before Hodge and Kuridrani also touched down in an utterly one-sided first half which saw Howley’s men miss no fewer than 11 tackles.
Australia should have scored more and wing Dane Haylett-Petty, who otherwise enjoyed an fine game, will have nightmares about dropping Foley’s inside pass with the try-line beckoning on 19 minutes.
Haylett-Petty made amends with four minutes left when he intercepted Sam Davies’ pass and cantered in from the halfway line to rub salt in Wales’ wounds.
This was Australia’s 12th successive victory over Wales and, on this evidence, there is no realistic prospect of that run ending any time soon.
The saying goes that British and Irish players raise their games in a Lions year but that was simply not the case here.
Leigh Halfpenny kicked a firsthalf penalty but otherwise offered little with ball in hand while Biggar’s performance started poorly when he was correctly sin-binned for an cynical pull back on Haylett-Petty after 16 minutes. It didn’t get much better for the Wales No10 when he returned.
Jamie Roberts and George North were also ineffective.
To make matters even worse for Howley and his already battered squad, scrum-half Rhys Webb, one of the few Welsh players to produce a credible performance, suffered a nasty ankle injury midway through the second half which looks certain to rule him out for the rest of the autumn.
Howley added: ‘Rhys is being medically assessed. It doesn’t look like there’s a break but there could be ligament damage.’
It was one of those days. Wales have much work to do.