Match action - starts
THE first time Wales played Japan they made such an impression that their hosts treated every player to a reception at the Imperial Palace and an engraved silver pocket watch.
On that blissful day in Tokyo more than 40 years ago, the WRU still managed to spoil the party, adamant that the gifts had to be returned because, believe it or not, their value exceeded the £25 maximum laid down in the amateur regulations.
How times change. As reward for the luckiest of wins, stolen from Japan by Sam Davies’ towering drop goal with eight seconds left on the watch, Wales will pocket a reward of around £10,000 – enough to buy timepieces studded with gold and diamonds. The penny-pinching mid-Seventies committee men must be spinning in their graves.
The result of a match that was supposed to have allowed Wales to fill their boots will have fooled nobody. Make no mistake, this was another ghastly Welsh attempt to break free from the shackles of the onedimensional game that has repeatedly been found inadequate against the Big Three.
They might easily have lost but, irony of ironies, for poor time-keeping by Yu Tamura in taking too long over his shots at goal. The most basic chronometer, never mind a silver pocket watch, would have confirmed that Japan’s fly-half wasted precious time.
If referees are supposed to call time on kickers who take longer than 60 seconds, then presumably nobody had told Marius van der Westhuizen. The South African referee refused to run out of patience despite Tamura making another painstakingly deliberate kicker, Johnny Sexton, appear positively rapid.
It comes to something when a Wales team featuring seven Lions has to be rescued by a novice fly-half whose Test career had amounted to 15 minutes against Australia. For reasons known only to the management, they allowed him a mere 13 this time.
While Rob Howley is to be commended for acknowledging that Japan deserved to win, the most embarrassing of wins left two questions screaming to be answered by the interim head coach.
One, why keep Davies waiting until the 67th minute? If Wales are serious about shifting to a wider game, he ought to have been on from the start or, at least, for the entire second half.
Two, what is the point of putting an 18-year-old wing on the bench and keep him there from start to finish? Heaven knows the fumbling Alex Cuthbert had given Howley ample justification to have introduced Keelan Giles at half-time.
Again Wales suffered through a reluctance to go for broke. Had they done so, Scott Williams would have started where he left off against Argentina, a vote of confidence to keep doing the things that Jamie Roberts doesn’t, like outside breaks.
Roberts’ close-range try, courtesy of his more inventive partner, Jonathan Davies, ought to have marked the beginning of the end for a Japanese team without their two bestknown players, Toulon No.15 Ayumu Goromaru and Chiefs flanker Michael Leitch.
Wales’ inability to off-load has been a glaring weakness for too long. Welding it to their game is proving painfully costly as well as exposing a miserable lack of skill. Two attempted offloads amounted to 14 points, the first, inexcusably, by Gareth Anscombe, the second by Liam Williams.
Dissecting the video will make for unpleasant viewing. For all their scrum dominance, Wales failed to produce a passing move in remotely the same class as the one Japan stitched together for the pick of the six tries, the one finished by Kenki Fukuoka.
The more seasoned observers in a full-house crowd would have taken their seats with some trepidation. When it comes to tackling the so-called second tier, Wales have some seriously bad form. Having endured too many close shaves and far worse, they had no excuse to be anything less than razor-sharp from the off. The history lesson had fallen on deaf ears.
Instead of watching their team seize immediate command, Welsh fans found themselves subjected to as grim a first ten minutes as those against Australia a fortnight earlier. Razorsharp? More bludgeon blunt.
They chucked the first lineout into Japanese hands, a gift that caused enough pandemonium for Leigh Halfpenny to concede a fivemetre scrum. The gifts kept coming and two proved costly, each suitably punished by Tamura.
Jonathan Davies’ high tackle invited the Green Rockets’ fly half to nail the first penalty from 40 metres. His second, from half the dis-
tance, stemmed from such a shambles that Wales would have been mightily relieved to have been only six points adrift instead of ten.
Yamada provided graphic early evidence of a home team seriously off the pace. His delicate chip left Cuthbert flailing, plunging Wales into such dire straits that Liam Williams could only stop the wing’s path with the ugliest of barges.
Even allowing for the ensuing penalty and yellow card, Wales knew they had got off lightly. It took them ten minutes to get as far as the Japanese 22, Dan Lydiate proving with the unwitting connivance of a panic-stricken defender that 14 men can be more effective than 15.
Every time Wales threatened to run off with the match, they contrived to keep their opponents in it. Cuthbert’s mishandling had cost them seven points before another fumble and Anscombe’s careless pass sent Yamada haring off between the posts.
He had time to look up at the big screen for confirmation that the pursuing Cuthbert wouldn’t catch him. Still the crowd waited for the real Wales to stand up and be counted.
Alun-Wyn Jones and Sam Warburton gave them fleeting promise 12 minutes into the second half, the lock shredding the Japanese midfield to finish off in some style.
But even at 11 points clear, Wales were never good enough to put the game to bed. Once Fukuoa’s acrobatic try dragged Japan back to within four, Wales spent the last quarter resigned to holding on through Halfpenny’s boot, pre-match ambition beyond their delivery.
Even that would not have been enough after Amanaki Mafi, outstanding for reasons other than his pony-tail, created the last try, for Amanaki Lotoahea. Tamura’s unerring but timeconsuming conversion tied it up at 30-30 and thereafter Wales had given up on the Halfpenny option.
Instead another scrumcapped saviour appeared. Sam Davies dropped the goal with the composure of a man who had been doing it all his life.
Not even that, though, could disguise another grim afternoon.