Five more tries, but Wales had them rattled
The gulf in tries between the old rivals has widened with every mis-match since that blessed last Saturday before Christmas 1953. The updated total reads this morning like a miserably one-sided game of basketball: Wales 27, New Zealand 130.
They say that those who ignore history go on repeating it, and in losing the first 29 matches to the All Blacks since Coronation Year, Wales have shipped tries at an average of exactly five a game. The 30th straight defeat, built on five more tries, falls neatly into the historical perspective.
There are times, though, when the bald facts distort the reality and in this case they do Wales less than justice. At first glance, they appear to tell the story of another hiding when, for once, they went toe-to-toe from start almost to finish.
On a night when Josh Navidi led the charge of the red brigade, the figures do not tell how they dominated the first 40 minutes like no other during the last 64 years of the fixture. Nor do they tell how, for almost an hour, Wales threatened to turn history inside out before the promise vanished like a mirage.
They can thank Rieko Ioane for that, not that the Aucklander would have had any way of knowing anything about losing to Wales, a prospect considered so terrible that it drove Andy Haden into the laughable line-out dive which left the Welsh Grand Slammers of 1978 claiming they had been cheated of a two-point win that flipped into a one-point defeat on the back of the consequent penalty.
In the 20 years since Ioane’s birth, Wales have now conceded five or more tries to the Kiwis on twelve occasions. That they can leave Ben Smith, Israel Dagg, Julian Savea and Nehe Milton-Skudder behind and still find a pair of wings as good as Ioane and Waisea Naholo is one of the wonders of the rugby world.
And yet the All Blacks made the shortest of journeys from their city centre hotel to the happiest of all hunting grounds in unusually subdued mood, all the more so given this fixture’s exalted place at the top of the Foregone Conclusion League.
Nobody was saying so publicly but they gave an impression that not even they could keep dredging up novices from the deepest well in the game and expect to maintain their aura of invincibility. The cast had changed so much that of the starting XV responsible for retaining the World Cup a mere two years ago, only two – Sam Whitelock and Aaron Smith – reappeared last night.
Coming a cropper in Sydney last month and almost coming another in Edinburgh last week left Steve Hansen wondering whether the team’s preparation left more than a bit to be desired. For the first time since presiding over two victorious World Cups, the Kiwi coach confession that his ever-changing team had “looked pretty ordinary at times”.
It wasn’t difficult to read between the lines, that one more ordinary performance would be one too many, even against heavily depleted opponents. Perhaps Hansen’s attenae had caught more than a whiff of danger on the wind, that, for once, Cardiff might prove an obstacle too far.
The Welsh aerial bombardment caused all manner of early mayhem. Beauden Barrett’s fumble of Dan Biggar’s first kick proved so contagious that Wales laid siege to their line with a ferocity which left the All Blacks no alternative other than to absorb the punishment.
They ought to have had more, far more than Leigh Halfpenny’s opening penalty salvo during an opening quarter when Wales lost scrum-half Rhys Webb and second row Jake Ball in rapid succession. By then the damage of another blow could be found on the scoreboard.
When they finally found an escape from the suffocating pressure and dared to trespass into their half of the field, the All Blacks gave Wales a lesson in the art of how to find space and then exploit it.
Undaunted by the acrobatic grandeur of Naholo’s opening try, Wales renewed their onslaught as though nothing untoward had happened. Navidi, playing the game of his life, almost blew the New Zealand barndoor off its hinges before the spectre of another try vanished with Taulupe Faletau fumbling a pass at full stretch almost between the posts.
When they mattered most, Wales’ skills let them down.
The carelessness left Wales with nothing more uplifting to show for their second siege than a second Halfpenny penalty. That reward promptly looked even more scant once Whitelock’s beleaguered team made a second sortie into the Welsh 22, Naholo’s instinctive finishing ensuring him a second try.
Far from crumbling, Wales responded with an overdue reward for their ambition, Amos popping up off his wing to make the decisive intervention for Scott Williams to finish.
Wales fell short because, for all their sweat and courage, they couldn’t do the extraordinary.
Rieko Ioane, unfortunately for Wales, could.
“Wales fell short because, for all their sweat and courage, they couldn’t do the extraordinary”