All Pivac’s wishes come true as Adams feasts on Italy’s weakness
If Wayne Pivac had written out a wish list before accepting the Wales job – and you never know with agents nowadays – then almost certainly he would have picked Italy, in the Principality, under the roof, for his first Six Nations game.
And as a cheeky addendum he might well have requested the first Welsh shutout in the Championship for 46 years and, if he was being really greedy, for one of his players – Josh Adams – to score the first Championship hat-trick in Cardiff for 51 years.
Perhaps Pivac would have been pushing his luck to request a debutant – Nick Tompkins – to display his undoubted merit from the bench and for Wales to extend their record homewinning Six Nations run to seven games and to equal their previous mark of eight successive Six Nations wins.
And, go on then, why not ask for Dan Biggar to do a thoroughly convincing impression of Carlos Spencer with a pass between the legs and then for his side to go where Warren Gatland’s Grand Slammers failed in 2019 and notch up a Six Nations bonus point. All of these things came to pass for Pivac here yesterday, but what excited him the most was that his squad have a few more gears to go through. “It was a pretty good performance,” Pivac said, refusing to pop any corks. “But it was messy at times and there is plenty to work on, which is pleasing.”
In truth, Wales will need to fix the faults quickly – particular in the setpiece – before Saturday because a dogfight in Dublin will be as far removed a proposition as it is possible to imagine from this walk in the park. Until battles such as the one they will face against Ireland are taken on and won, the “Warren Who?” T-shirts will have to wait on the presses.
Yet it would have been churlish for Gatland’s successor not to welcome a dreamy first day at the office. “We got the five points we were after and we are delighted to have done that,” Pivac said. “And we are pleased to have held them scoreless. That doesn’t happen often at this level.”
The statistics back that up emphatically. The last time Wales whitewashed anyone was Fiji in the World Cup nine years ago, whereas Scotland were the pointless victims in 1974 when the then Arms Park was treated to a 6-0 bonanza, despite the home heroes boasting the likes of JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, Phil Bennett, Gareth Edwards and Merv “The Swerve” Davies.
Gerald never managed to rack up a championship, with Adams almost emulating Maurice Richards, who grabbed four in 1969, against England of all peo
ple. Heady company, indeed. Of course, the 24-year-old deserved the headlines, just as he warranted the man-ofthe-match honours that rather bafflingly went to flanker Justin Tipuric, despite his customary brilliance. In the past 12 months, nobody in international rugby has scored as many tries (12) as the Cardiff Blues flier, with this trio making it eight from the past six games that also included another hattrick against Fiji in the World Cup in which he emerged as the top tryscorer.
A great wing makes it looks easy and that was the case with his first two tries that helped Wales to a 21-0 half-time lead. The first saw him squeeze in the corner after a break from the excellent Leigh Halfpenny, while his second was also a touchline-evader. However, that touchdown will forever be remembered for Biggar’s audacious pass between the legs.
It was a moment of genius and encapsulated why Biggar remains so underrated. If Barry John had ever completed such a feat there would have been statues erected and Max Boyce songs written. To think, Biggar, 30, has been generally regarded as a safe but hardly inspired pair of hands. He has been transformed under Chris Boyd at Northampton. “It just shows the confidence in the player,” Pivac said. “He had the skill to execute it beautifully. Dan had a very good game all around.” But if an old gem has been polished, then a new one has definitely been found. Few realised that Tompkins was eligible for Wales until recently, but he is now being clutched close to the nation’s bosom after a quite astonishing contribution in a role that was meant to be a cameo.
The 24-year-old from Saracens with a Welsh grandmother appeared lively when he came on as a blood replacement from Johnny McNicholl – playing a part in Adams’s first score – after 10 minutes. With almost 30 minutes remaining, Pivac threw on Tompkins for Hadleigh Parkes at inside centre and so he emphasised his quality, taking a wonderful line following Cory Hill’s surge upfield and effecting a giddying sidestep to crash over. “Everybody knows who Nick Tompkins is now,” Pivac said, with an extra sense of glee, seeing as it was he who realised Tompkins was eligible to wear a red shirt five years ago.
Expect him to wear No13 at the Aviva Stadium, leaving George North to fight for his place on the wing. After Tompkins’s intervention it should have been plain-sailing to the bonus point but after North thought he had scored in the 64th minute – Tompkins again to the fore – Italy at least made their hosts negotiate tricky waters.
North eventually forced his way over on 77 minutes and then came Adams’s grandstand finish.
At this point, the Italians collapsed to their knees to reflect on their 23rd Six Nations defeat in succession. No wishes granted for their new coach Franco Smith, merely a few positives to take from their performances in the scrum and line-out and commendable percentages in territory and possession. It was all so depressingly familiar.