Halfpenny is class on another red-letter day for Scarlets
One day soon the scoreline will be enshrined in clubhouses all over Heart and Soul Rugby Country: Scarlets 34, Scotland 7.
Who knows, in time it may acquire a reverence and historical significance to compare with another result, one that keeps bouncing around the rugby planet even now almost 50 years after the event: Llanelli 9, Zeeland Newydd 3.
If nothing will ever surpass that in the cherished memory of those who were there on that magical Halloween at Stradey Park, then what happened in Cardiff yesterday deserves to run it close. And closer still for those in every Scarlet town and every village in West Wales, ecstatic at the way their boys made the Six Nations look like another PRO14 jaunt. Admittedly, the ten starting Scarlets needed a helping hand here and there from the few drawn from the other three regional tribes and in that respect no hands proved more helpful than those of the Dragons’ lock Cory Hill, simply outstanding on his first Championship start.
If the 1972 All Blacks are still trying in their dotage to figure out how they came to grief at Llanelli, then the Scots who were here yesterday will probably never understand what happened to their team.
Never can reports of one country’s graduation to something more uplifting than dodging the Wooden Spoon have been more exaggerated. It ensured that one Scarlet, Scotland captain John Barclay, finished up lost for words: “I am speechless.’’
Scotland had, of course, taken too many ritual beatings in Cardiff but this was going to be different. Having run rings round Australia and very nearly done the same to the All Blacks, Gregor Townsend’s daring team headed south eager to show the stricken Welsh the cleanest pair of heels.
They would, according to the script, announce their conversion from perennial chopping blocks into title contenders. After all those depressing years of failure in London, Dublin and Cardiff, they had found a cure for their travel sickness.
And if they couldn’t beat a Welsh team hit by the loss of no fewer than eight Lions, when on earth would they? For all their tedious talking up of the Scots as favourites, Wales privately fancied their chances but never, in their wildest dreams, could they have imagined victory on such a crushing scale.
So many wounded big cats left Wales no option but to pick more Scarlets than would otherwise have been the case. It left them no excuse for not starting Rhys Patchell at fly half whose performances had been crying out for a proper reward last autumn, instead of a miserable half-hour as a sub against South Africa.
And, with due respect to the injured Dan Biggar, Patchell fully justified his belated promotion. The Scarlets’ ringmaster gave Wales an extra attacking edge, his intelligence and panoramic vision never better illustrated than by the diagonal kick which caught Byron McGuigan off his wing and which would have given Josh Adams a debut try but for an unfriendly bounce.
Instead of starting where they had finished against New Zealand in November, Scotland aided and abetted Wales at every opportunity. They had a promising first four minutes, a stampeding Jonny Gray run stopped by Patchell and an early threat from Stuart Hogg.
Once that had been dealt with, Scotland fell apart. For a while they looked too bad to be true until their fumbling poverty persisted long enough for everyone to see the stark truth, that they
were too dreadful for words.
That Wales made them look like that does them the credit they deserve. In adversity, they made more progress in the strategic transition of their game during one afternoon than at any time since their management came to the belated conclusion that they had become predictably one-dimensional.
For a country whose struggle to score tries has been all the harder to understand given the quality of their backs, this was something to behold. If they wound up being rewarded as never before, a first try-bonus point was no more than they deserved.
Scotland threw the first try away, Ali Price providing the pass for his opposite number, Gareth Davies, to intercept 60 metres out. They were still throwing intercepts towards the end, this time Price’s partner Finn Russell with the gift which Wales cashed into Steff Evans’ final try.
It completed a Scarlets’ field day in the national cause – all four tries, all four conversions and both penalties. As if all that, a dominant all-Scarlet front row and Patchell’s poise were not enough, another Scarlet topped the lot as everyone’s man of the match, Aaron Shingler.
His satisfaction, however immense, could not possibly have been any greater than that felt by another Scarlet, one who went into the game if not under a cloud then certainly under the cosh.
Ever since he had retreated from the south of France to the west of Wales, Leigh Halfpenny’s status as the most automatic of automatic selections had been called into question, his very Test future in doubt.
Autumn performances fell below his own demanding level of professional excellence, fuelling fears that he wasn’t quite the player he had been, that while nobody dared question his ability off the tee and courageous defending, his attacking threat left much to be desired.
After all, he hadn’t scored a Test try since February 2013. Nobody can accuse him of that any more, not now that he has scored twice as many in one afternoon as in the last five years. Six goals out of six left no doubt about his enduring accuracy off the tee.
For Scotland in general and Russell in particular, it added up to a daylight nightmare. Russell started as if ready to run Wales ragged only to deteriorate so far so quickly as to run his own team ragged instead.
A few unnecessary risks, far too many collective blunders and a defensive frailty which Wales ought to have punished with six tries left Russell nursing a highly embarrassing fact. He had to kick off no fewer than seven times, high even by the standards of Scottish stand-offs at a venue where they have now lost eight in a row.