Ryan’s recovery and redemption of Rhys make for highlights of the autumn series
Wales ended their autumn series campaign with a 29-28 victory over Australia, but Wayne Pivac’s team were pushed to the limit by opponents who played with just 14 men for 65 minutes after the dismissal of No. 8 Rob Valetini.
Glass half full or half empty over the autumn, then? Agreement there won’t be. Those visiting Positives R Us will be encouraged by the emergence of younger players such as Taine Basham and Christ Tshiunza and point out that Wales were missing a virtual regiment of injured players.
Others might highlight the weaknesses of Wales’s set-piece game and their lack of fluency behind.
But what’s beyond doubt is after their final-quarter implosion against New Zealand, Pivac’s side played with spirit, and that matters
We assess the winners and losers from the campaign...
Winners Ryan Elias
When yet another Wales line-out throw went awry in the eve-ofHalloween encounter against New Zealand, you assumed Ryan Elias was on a one-way ticket to Abuse Central.
Fast-forward three weeks and there’s no little acclaim for the Scarlets hooker who has shown no little character in turning his fortunes around during a campaign.
How difficult must that be to do?
The expectation might have been that his darts would continue to go astray, but against South Africa and Fiji he displayed notable accuracy, helped by Adam Beard’s sympathetic line-out calling.
If the set-piece took a step back against Australia, Elias could counter that he was throwing to different locks, with a new partnership in Seb Davies and Ben Carter.
Around the field, the Scarlet has been excellent, banging in the tackles and carries.
It’s all spoken volumes for his mental toughness..
In any debate about Wales’s top players this autumn, he deserves to figure.
Taine Basham
He’s had many pats on the back and deserves them.
Yes, there are areas where the 22-year-old can improve, among them his handling.
But the way he tore into every challenge he faced, each one of them a major assignment, was something to behold. Displaying the exuberance of youth, he didn’t seem to be bothered that he was facing New Zealand, South Africa or Australia.
His opening half-hour against the All Blacks was startling, with Basham turning ball over and surging forward on the carry. In no way cowed by reputation, he might have been playing New Tredegar rather than New Zealand, with nerves conspicuous by their absence.
Here was a player who believed in himself and had the game to back it up.
He’s performed exceptionally these past few weeks and put himself firmly in the mix for the Six Nations and beyond.
That’s good news for Pivac.
Liam Williams Welcome back.
It’s been a while and Wales have missed you.
The Waunarlwydd product’s return to fitness and form has been a huge plus for Pivac’s team.
The warrior full-back reminded us that he was born without the fear gene 30 years ago in Morriston.
Along the way, he’s acquired considerable skill, too.
The rubber-band man, as Pivac once called him, was superb against South Africa and Australia, his performances stamped by an almost reckless disregard for his own wellbeing. Sometimes, you fear Williams (circled, left) is too committed.
But he’s a wonderful player to watch.
Jamie Roberts
Roberts is a winner this autumn because his punditry on Amazon Prime has been top class.
The latest evidence to support that view came on Saturday after Australia coach Dave Rennie took issue with the sin-binning of Kurtley Beale for slapping the ball down, comparing it with the referee waving Nick Tompkins on after he’d slapped the ball while attempting an intercept, with Mike Adamson and his officials ruling it had gone backwards. Tompkins went on to score a try.
Rennie contended some of the decision-making had been “horrendous”.
Roberts could easily have let the matter pass.
But he didn’t, saying: “It was a yellow card with Kurtley Beale. You put your hand out and get it wrong and that’s what happens.
“If the ball goes backwards off the hand of Beale, it’s no foul play.
“It’s a risk you take if you put your hand out there.
“I have to completely disagree with Dave Rennie. That ball goes backwards off the hand of Nick Tompkins.
“He actually plays the ref. We are all told growing up you play the whistle.
“The Australians put their hands up and stopped playing.
“Nick Tompkins carried on playing and scored a try.”
It was fearless and articulate comment from a gent who calls it as he sees it.
In case anyone’s in any doubt, that’s the way to do it.
Outstanding, really.
Rhys Priestland
Imagine you were Rhys Priestland back in the day.
You’d been getting up at dawn for two weeks, undergoing multiple sessions in the dreaded ice chambers that were in vogue with the Wales rugby team at the time and throwing yourself into 12-hour training days that made some players physically unwell.
Then as you were about to run onto the field to play rugby for your country at the national ground, a section of the crowd choose to jeer you at the mere mention of your name over the public address.
Priestland hadn’t even started performing.
All he had done was sing the national anthem, watch the first 47 minutes of the match against Australia in 2014, get out of his seat and run onto the pitch.
Anyway, no-one was booing on
Saturday. It was left to Priestland to slot the kick to win the match for Wales against the Wallabies and he made it look easy.
Cheers soared all around the Principality Stadium.
It was a lovely moment for one of rugby’s nice guys.
Alex Cuthbert
A word, too, about this guy. Maybe the most joyful moment of the entire campaign from a Wales perspective was the superbly taken try by Cuthbert (circled, left) against Fiji.
You could hardly put a price on the smile on his face in the aftermath. Like Priestland, he’d had to contend with a lot in the past. Like Priestland, he’d fought his way back into the Wales set-up. Like Priestland, his spirit deserves to be applauded.
Losers Wales’s scrum
It’s been under the pump throughout the campaign, from the game with New Zealand to the outing against Australia.
At times on Saturday, the Wallaby tighthead, Taniela Tupou, looked as if he could shove Wales back 10 yards were he facing them on his own.
How much are Wales missing Alun Wyn Jones, a player Adam Jones rates as the best scrummaging lock he played alongside? How much are they feeling the absence of Ken Owens?
Are there any other options? If there are, letters should be addressed to
Mr W. Pivac and Mr. J. Humphreys, c/o the Welsh Rugby Union, Cardiff.
Nicky Smith might well be reaching for a pen right now.
On a serious note, Wales need to examine what has gone wrong. Why have Wyn Jones and Tomas Francis, two highly respected campaigners, found the going tough over the past weeks?
If there’s a need for a specialist scrum coach, then Wales need to pick up the phone and hire one.
Dave Rennie
Australia played well on Saturday, but discipline is part of the game and the Wallabies had a man needlessly sent off for a dangerous challenge. More than anything else that affected the match outcome.
Yet their coach Dave Rennie chose to attack the “horrendous” decisionmaking by officials.
What’s to be said?
Every game contains debatable calls which will be interpreted differently, but Rennie (circled, left) would be better served improving his team’s indiscipline rather than attacking those charged with running the show on the field.
He has some excellent young players emerging, including the outstanding centre Hunter Paisami.
But the Wallabies have lost every match they’ve played in Europe this autumn. That should be the theme of the debate Down Under.
Jonathan Davies
Was he dropped or was he rotated? He won’t care about semantics. Davies, the winner of 93 Wales caps and six for the Lions, would have just wanted to be on the field in Cardiff to complete his century of Test appearances.
The good news is that Pivac values him as a person and as a player.
The bad news is that it won’t be easy to force his way back into the starting line-up, with George North
returning from injury and Nick Tompkins playing well this autumn.
But Davies has battled back from adversity before, albeit of the injuryframed kind.
He has the character to once again make a fight of it.
Callum Sheedy and Gareth Anscombe
It’s been a long old campaign for Sheedy.
He played in every game Wales played during their Six Nations campaign last term and acquitted himself well in most of them.
There were also two starts for him in the summer.
But this autumn he’s seen just 20 minutes of action against Fiji as Wales went from Old Mother Hubbard mode at fly-half to having four No. 10s at various points in the campaign.
Much the same applies to Gareth Anscombe.
Like Sheedy, he’s a quality player. But his involvement was limited over the last month or so.
In his case, maybe it would have been better had he been eased back into the set-up after his recovery from the horrendous knee injury he suffered in 2019.
Both players will hope for better fortune in the Six Nations.