Plenty of room for improvement as warm-up numbers just fail to add up
Blacks (32), Australia (31), France (29), England (27) and Scotland (27) are all well clear of that figure for 2019.
Metres made provides further evidence.
The Welsh average was 352 per game, with New Zealand posting a whopping 590 and the Wallabies 516.
So, it’s fair to say the cutting edge needs sharpening.
The attacking game was particularly blunt against Ireland in Dublin last weekend, aside from Hadleigh Parkes’ strike, with only eight defenders beaten in the course of 80 minutes.
Despite having 88 per cent territory and 86 possession in the opening quarter of an hour, Wales failed to register a single point in that period.
Now clearly you don’t want to show all your cards before the main event and the hope is that Gatland and Rob Howley have something up their sleeves for Japan.
But on the evidence of the summer, there is a concern over Wales’ ability to break down defences, with a shortage of gainline-busting ball carriers and limited invention behind.
DEFENCE
WALES’ Grand Slam triumph was built around their defence, as has been much of their success over the past 11 years, under the unique tutelage of Shaun Edwards.
And there were still plenty of bodies being put on the line during the warm-up programme, with some notable individual tallies.
Young Aaron Wainwright, comfortably the player of the summer, put in no fewer than 50 tackles from his three starts, while Alun Wyn Jones made 43 and tight-head prop Tomas Francis contributed a highly creditable 30.
Yet, overall, there were 96 tackles missed, at an average of 24 per game,