SIX NATIONS SPECIAL
Italy crushed, but so what!
FORGET Hadrian — Warren’s Wall was the craggiest, hardest and most impressive landmark in Scotland yesterday.
What a siege it had to endure. For pretty much all of the 40 secondhalf minutes it stood firm amid an onslaught. As blue crunched relentlessly into red out came the experienced, gutsy guard.
Justin Tipuric — 24 tackles. Josh Navidi — 23. Alun Wyn Jones — 16. Hadleigh Parkes — 15. Ken Owens — 14.
Ninety-two hits between the leaders. The side as a whole made 170 across the match to shut out the Scots and seal a win which propels Wales into a potentially glorious Grand Slam week back in Cardiff.
They never lose those, but were mightily nervous their Slam would be scuppered in Scotland.
‘We were comfortable first half then held on second half,’ said Wales head coach Gatland afterwards. ‘I thought we showed great spirit. This is a special group of men. Fair play to the players. They’ve dug deep. I say they’ve forgotten to lose and winning has become a habit. We might have lost that match in previous years.’
What makes that resolve — masterminded by Shaun Edwards who continues to produce the most miserly of defences — even more impressive is the theme of the week. Talk of a potential ScarletsOspreys merger, as Welsh rugby was caught in the chaotic throes of ‘Project Reset’, was a dastardly distraction.
‘We didn’t train very well on Tuesday which is normally a big defensive day,’ Gatland noted afterwards — Tuesday being the day when the merger was on, then off, as resignations and incendiary statements fired around with the players caught in the crossfire.
Thirteen of this team had no idea if their region would exist come full-time, and in particular Jones and Owens seemed to use the whole mess as fuel for the fight.
That pair were monumental, again. Captain Jones is 33 now and 124 caps into his Wales career, but seems to be improving.
Typically he led like a king. But it was not just the bashing, crashing stuff, the physicality and the grit, but his deftness of touch that was so noticeable.
His little offloads and pick-ups off his toes kept everything flowing. With him and carriers such as Rob Evans — another Scarlet who is out of contract come the season’s end so had no idea of his imminent future — and Ross Moriarty whacking on this was Wales’ best first half of the Championship.
After Finn Russell had knocked Scotland ahead with a penalty when Wales were offside, the visitors had their first score. It came from their first attack. With numbers over on the left Jonathan Davies passed into the sunny strip where Josh Adams lurked.
The Worcester wing was away and performed a stunning step to evade the flapping Blair Kinghorn — the full-back could only dive desperately, and got nowhere near.
That try was converted by Gareth Anscombe, then he and Russell exchanged penalties before Wales scored again.
With shades of the Adams try against England, where Wales went through 35 phases before scoring, this was a multi-phase mashing. Twenty-three it took this time, pickand-gos-a-plenty before Jonathan Davies saw a gap and scored.
The conversion was missed, as was a penalty by Anscombe, but at half-time George Ezra’s ‘Shotgun’ blared out which summed up the half — Scotland blown apart.
However, whether it was premature thoughts of parties in Cardiff next Saturday, nerves jangling, or Scotland’s s urging, t he game turned.
Prop Allan Dell sparked the whole thing. His 40-metre charge into the
Welsh half six minutes after the resumption had Murray field roaring. And they would have been hoarse by the end, as Scotland had the ball for the rest of the half almost exclusively 10 metres from the Welsh line. Liam Williams’ tackle to stop Dell saw him taken off with a ‘stinger’ shoulder injury.
Dan Biggar came on, Anscombe moved to full-back. Torrents of blue came flooding.
Hamish Watson — hair flapping in the wind — was a phenomenon from the bench. It felt like Wales’ wall had to crack under t he weight of pressure.
It took a magician to find a hole. Russell conjured a sublime trick to flick a pass inside to Byron McGuigan who was sent through. Next Scotland went right to Adam Hastings who found pocket-rocket Darcy Graham on the wing; he scored and Scotland were four behind from nowhere.
But that was the only gap they found in the brick-work. Parkes scrambled to catch a chip into the in-goal area, and he, Owens and Biggar held Grant Gilchrist up over the line.
Adam Beard then won a crucial penalty to relieve pressure, but Aled Davies piled it back on with a box-kick that went out on the full. But when Ali Price tackled George North without the ball following a Russell chip Wales ended the siege. Anscombe had a final shot, he waited for the clock to tick down before he struck the penalty that made sure. Phew. Scotland coach Gregor Townsend was angered t hat referee Pascal Gauzere had not flashed any cards. ‘It seems like their ill-discipline was rewarded — they managed to stop us by giving away penalties,’ he said. But Gatland did not care a hoot. ‘We need another victory to win the Championship, and the only way we can do that is by winning the Grand Slam,’ he said. And when you think about it, with one win for the clean sweep, Wales have hardly played well yet.
SCOTLAND: Kinghorn; Seymour, Grigg, P Horne, D Graham (Laidlaw 65min); Russell, Price; Dell, McInally (Brown 70), Nel (Berghan65), Gilchrist, Gray (Watson 65), Bradbury, Ritchie, Strauss (Toolis 65). Replacements (not used): Reid, Hastings, McGuigan.
WALES: L Williams (Biggar 48); North, J Davies, Parkes (Watkin 74), Adams; Anscombe, G Davies (A Davies 70); R Evans (Smith 62), Owens (Dee 65), Francis (Lewis 65), Beard (Ball 62), A Jones (Wainwright 70), Navidi, Tipuric, Moriarty.
Referee: P Gauzere (France).