World No.1 would sit better if they ever beat NZ
Beating England to win Grand Slams and Triple Crowns has long been a way of life for Wales through the ages. Their prize for beating them yesterday almost defied belief.
It put them where no Welsh team has ever gone before, to No 1 in the official rankings as devised, for better or worse, by World Rugby. International sport has never wasted any time bothering about logic and what happened here will have sent waves of consternation rolling around the Cook Strait.
The Kiwis will have woken to the distressing news that, after 12 years ruling the roost, the All Blacks have been knocked off their pedestal by a country whom they have played 30 times since 1953 and won all 30. Those deriding it as fake news should be advised that the rankings are made on current form which means it’s probably
just as well that Wales have steered clear of the double World Cup holders for the last three years.
Warren Gatland, a native Mooloo Man from the dairy farms of Waikato, must have got an early whiff of what was coming from half a world away. “Some people there (New Zealand) will be thinking: ‘This is a joke’,” he said.
Quite why the result of a pre-World Cup ‘friendly’ should enable Wales to supersede a country whom they have failed to beat every other year for six-and-a-half decades would have stumped Aristotle, Archimedes and other masters of metaphysics, never mind simpler folk.
It may not mean that much now but if Wales negotiate their two remaining pre-tournament matches against Ireland and arrive in Japan as No. 1, they will be expected to end up in another place where they have never been before, the final in Yokohama on the first weekend of November.
Seeing off a largely England 2nd XV was the very least Wales demanded of themselves having singularly failed to do so last Sunday. They managed it with some difficulty, manning the barricades in the final seconds to derail a maul rather than let England shunt them into submission.
A draw would have kept the All Blacks lording it over the rest but a draw would have been more than England deserved even after they unloaded their bench as reinforcements for the first-choice starting trio of Elliot Daly, Maro Itoje and Billy Vunipola.
Wales won because they were smart enough to catch England napping, a move orchestrated by Dan Biggar aiming two perfect diagonal kicks, the first gathered on the bounce by Josh Adams, the second finding George North in splendid isolation on the opposite touchline.
The try raised questions as to why Pascal Gauzere did not disallow it by enforcing a law which requires that a carded player must have left the field before the game can restart. Anthony Watson had not done so but the French official did what virtually all referees do, he let it go.
Watson had been binned, rightly so, for deliberately preventing Hadleigh Parkes’ midfield pass exploiting a three-man overlap to his left. Why should the attacking team sacrifice the element of surprise to wait for an opponent to drag himself to the naughty chair?
The law, in that context, is a bit of an ass. The idea that Wales should forego the element of surprise to suit the opposition would have amounted to double punishment. Biggar had the vision and the skill to make England cough up the full seven-point price.
The only try made all the difference. Biggar’s slavish commitment to the team cause carried him through two painful blows to the right shoulder which would have persuaded a lesser player to put self-preservation above everything else.
He soldiered on, stung by criti
“Biggar had the vision and skill to make England cough up the full seven-point price”
cism from one of the celebrated Lions from the Seventies who declared that Wales would not win the World Cup with Danny boy at fly half. Biggar, now the No. 1 ten, needed no prompting on the subject: “Special thanks to JJ Williams for his comments.’’
There were times when the victory might have been a pyrrhic one given that it was achieved with a few casualties too many. Wales lost the first, Liam Williams, in the warm-up, which meant Leigh Halfpenny back in action for the first time since he fell victim to Samu Kerevi’s dangerous tackle against Australia nine months ago.
He, of course, will be on the plane when the final 31 are named after the first Ireland fixture at the end of the month. Aaron Wainwright, at 21 the youngest player on the field, confirmed his presence with an imperious all-round display, not least in the line-out.
He, too, failed to go the distance but with nothing more serious than a ‘dead leg’. Wales will be more concerned at the deficiency of their supporting cast, not least at tight-head where Dillon Lewis gave away too many penalties.
Of the others forced to leave during the match with run of the mill injuries – Jake Ball (dead leg), Gareth Davies (hip) and Biggar (shoulder) – the cruellest blow fell to James Davies. He had waited all his rugby life for one shot at making the World Cup, just one.
From the very start the Scarlets’ openside had been plagued by what others saw as a physical handicap, that in a Test arena reserved for the gigantic and the gargantuan, ‘Cubby Boi’ somehow didn’t quite measure up.
Another flanker from the ranks of the vertically-challenged, Neil Back, had the same problem before eventually convincing England of his value not to any old international team but a World Cup-winning one. That Back happened to be considerably shorter and lighter than Davies served only to increase the Welshman’s frustration.
Despite standing six feet tall and tipping the scales at 16 stone, Davies knew he had to change the management perception that he was a lightweight, a luxury they could scarcely afford. Davies kept hammering at the door until Gatland gave him a start against Italy in the Six Nations two seasons back.
They recalled him among a largely reserve team for the series in Argentina and despite distinguishing himself in both Tests, Davies duly found himself back in his natural habitat, on the outside looking in. Within 20 minutes he had clashed heads with brother Jonathan ‘Fox’ Davies and caught Itoje’s accidental knee to the temple for good measure.
Aware he needed a big game to change the back row pecking order, Davies struggled on for another five minutes before being helped off in a concussed state. Being part of the team that went to No. 1 in the world will be no consolation.
“Davies had waited all his rugby life for one shot at making the World Cup”