Can they kick Wales have to It? Yes, they can... but sharpen up their chase
IT would take a brave man to argue that Wales were anything other than second best against New Zealand on Saturday.
Of course, some areas were worse than others.
Wales would have been relatively pleased with how the breakdown - led by Taine Basham - went, while there were still some defensive kinks.
Of course, the lineout remains a glaring concern, while the scrum was another facet of the game that Wales didn’t get to grips with.
However, perhaps the most startling area that Wayne Pivac’s side were lacking in was the kick-chase.
After all, it’s not like they hadn’t been warned.
Ask the world and his dog what not to do against the All Blacks and the answer would likely be ‘kick loose’.
Speaking last week, Jamie Roberts pretty much said the same.
“That’s something Wales will have focused on in the past few weeks, making sure their kicking game is spot on. They’re either finding space with kicks or they’re kicking to compete. We’ve seen South Africa expose the All Blacks a few months ago in the air.
“If we can get Owen Lane, Josh Adams and Johnny McNicholl up in the air against these guys with a good, accurate kicking game, that is a foundation on which a performance is going to be built, certainly if it’s raining.
“There’ll be a huge emphasis on that. Couple of metres too long and it won’t work against this side with the ability they have to punish you in a few phases.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes and ultimately that’s down to Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe and how they control the game. They’re obviously very talented runners with the ball, very quick and very smart.
“But it’s that control, when to pass, when to run, when to kick, that is going to be crucial on Saturday.”
Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened on Saturday.
There were some startlingly obvious mishaps with Wales’ kick-chase in the second-half as the game got away with them.
But it was the subtle errors in the early stages that signalled everything wasn’t necessarily right.
The thing with a poor kick-chase is it’s not always easy to identify the root cause.
Many will blame the kicker for going too long, but, as the old adage goes, a kick is only as good as its chase.
Right now, Wales seem to be having issues with both.
The chase isn’t always there, but when it is, the kicks aren’t always as pinpoint as they should be.
Starting early on in the first-half, we saw Tomos Williams clearing his lines from his 22.
There was no real lead chaser and the line that rushed up had something of a dog leg.
That allowed New Zealand to push the ball infield, stretching the chase across the pitch before immediately working back, putting up a perfectlyweighted kick off their own.
They actually didn’t secure possession, but they easily should have – given the fact that, despite all the red jerseys around the ball, it was a free take for the All Blacks’ chaser.
A couple of minutes later, we saw Williams go to the air again.
This time Josh Adams was the lead chaser – a role he performs incredibly well given his world-class abilities in the air.
However, it felt on Saturday it was a job he was doing alone – with no one tailing him in a similar vein to what Justin Tipuric has done in the past
That role played by Tipuric as the second chaser is crucial, allowing Wales to have an extra body to sweep up a loose ball, make a tackle if necessary or provide breakdown support.
In this case if Adams did tip the ball back, it’s likely to end up in the hands of an All Black.
It was a similar story when Gareth Anscombe hoisted it up in the air with a cross-field bomb for Owen Lane to chase.
Again, it was fine work from Lane as the lead chaser, managing to tip it back.
But no-one anticipated where the ball might end up, all congregating inside Lane rather than at least one secondary chaser filling the space he vacated, and Taine Basham had to chase backwards to retrieve the loose ball.
From an aerial win, Wales would have ultimately ended up on the back-foot were it not for an existing penalty advantage.
We mentioned the startlingly obvious examples that really hurt Wales and they became all the more frequent in the second-half as the All Blacks began to turn poor kick-chases into clean breaks.
Wales got a free-kick from a scrum and Anscombe stuck it in the air.
The initial chase looked quite good, with Adams, Tomos Williams and Seb Davies all grouping around the catcher.
However, the timing was just a little wrong – with Williams pulling out of a tackle for fear of taking Will Jordan out in the air.
Davies had overchased, allowing Jordan to break free.
The secondary line of chasers had a dog leg and, as such, the All Black winger was immediately into acres of space.
That right there, with the missed tackle and the immediate break, was
as obvious an issue as you get.
But the two poor kick-chases that led to Jordan’s try were just as, if not more frustrating.
It started with a box-kick from Williams, with Adams pushing on as lead chaser.
However, the kick this time was too long and the chase beyond Adams disorganised.
You could see the Wales winger trying to organise things on the fly with instructions to his team-mates, but all it took was one pass infield from Beauden Barrett, who was able to take the ball in acres of space, to put Rieko Ioane up against a disorganised chase.
Unsurprisingly, he broke through the defence and put Wales on the back-foot.
Criminally, the All Blacks coughed up the ball and handed Wales another chance to clear from a near identical position.
Again though, they got things wrong.
Adams was again the lead chaser and again he was barking orders inside him.
However, as Jordan took the ball, locks Will Rowlands and Adam Beard pushed up beyond Adams to meet the winger.
They got their spacings a little wrong – sticking too close together to give Jordan the sniff of an outside shoulder on Rowlands.
He took it and Adams couldn’t bite in with hooker Codie Taylor loitering outside him.
From there, it was a wonderful finish from Jordan – but it’s hard to overlook the kick-chase that led to it.
To compound a wretched day, Wales killed any hopes of a comeback when they gifted New Zealand seven points just after they had got themselves back in the game.
It was basic stuff, with Ryan Elias beginning to chase a kick from Rhys Priestland, despite being about 20 yards offside.
“We gave away a very silly penalty,” said Pivac afterwards.
“Those are the fine margins against good sides like New Zealand. You do that, a silly penalty for being 20 metres in front of the kicker, it’s inexcusable.”
The last one aside, which is seemingly just an individual one, it’s hard to fully understand quite where these issues are coming from.
Although not all his kicks were perfect, it’s too simplistic, and not at all true, to say the problem lies with Williams.
Along with the lineout, this is an area of the game where Wales have certainly regressed since Warren Gatland left – with some of the cracks perhaps being papered over by the aerial games of Adams, Liam Williams and Dan Biggar.
It would appear to be a coaching decision in terms of who is chasing up beyond the lead chaser and who is staffing the ruck.
All too often, these problems are borne out of tight-five forwards chasing while back-rowers staff the breakdown.
A similar issue tended to plague Wales’ defence in the days of Byron Hayward and how forwards’ lined up around rucks before those kinks were ironed out.
Something similar will need to be done, but it’s hardly a new issue. Up next is South Africa.
You could put together a thesis on the amount of words committed to print when it comes to the Springboks and their kicking game.
They are unashamedly reliant on being as awkward in the air as possible.
“Our option will always be to attack space,” said Boks coach
Jacques Nienabar after unveiling a settled line-up to close out the championship.
“You also try to attack space with what you feel you are good at ... your DNA.
“We feel that [the kicking game] is our DNA, that is what we are good at, and we can’t hide away from it.”
Unlike Warren Gatland’s Lions in the summer, Wales won’t want to be dragged into a kicking battle with the Springboks.
Johnny McNicholl, fresh off his best game in a Welsh jersey, could well keep the 15 shirt given Liam Williams’ total lack of game-time and, as a result, we could see Wales run it back far more than they kick off initial transition.
However, that will likely mean that Wales’ means of territory could well come from box-kicking – an area of the game they failed to execute on Saturday.