...but Wales are stifled by the Springboks
“Finally, Wales have come up short,” said Owen Slot in The Times. Until the 76th minute of their World Cup semi-final against South Africa on Sunday, they managed to stay level. But in the end, they were pipped by a penalty kick: the Springboks won 19-16, setting up a final against England. It was a battle – “slow, scrappy and attritional”. You can blame South Africa for that, said Mick Cleary in The Daily Telegraph. They had a simple strategy: “pummel, pummel, pummel, wait for Wales to tire and then strike”. It might not have been pretty, but it was effective. This wasn’t how Warren Gatland wanted to bow out, said Steve James in The Times. When the New Zealander took over as head coach in 2007, Wales had fallen to No. 10 in the world. Yet he quickly transformed the team. Within a year, they won a Six Nations grand slam – repeating the feat in 2012, 2013 and again this year. And now he has taken Wales further than any manager before him in a World Cup, despite modest resources and a long injury list. Much as he might rue this missed opportunity, he remains probably the greatest international coach of his generation. For Alun Wyn Jones, the talismanic Wales captain, this “near-miss” was heartbreaking, said Chris Foy in the Daily Mail. His international career might not be over just yet – but at 34, he knows this is his last World Cup. Without him, “Wales would not have had the era they have just enjoyed”.
South Africa’s performance was surely a preview of how they will approach the final on Saturday, said Alasdair Reid in The Times. It confirmed that under their coach Rassie Erasmus, the Springboks are essentially a “blunt instrument”. He has returned them to “the game of the highveld”: brutal, basic and effective. In the process, he has “restored the soul of South African rugby”.