Peter Jackson’s verdict: Willie-o-the-wisp leads Wales up garden path

Wales were shaking their heads in bewildered search of some explanation for their torment when Willie le Roux rather let the cat out of the bag.
“I want to thank the Lord for giving me the talent to play the game,” he said before receiving the man-of-the-match award. The South African full-back’s spontaneous admission that a superior force had been at work might have accounted for some of his more wondrous offerings.
Old hands at the thankless game of trying to spot a Welsh win south of the Equator will have seen many an opponent lead their team a merry dance down the decades. None can ever have led them on a merrier one than the God-fearing Willie did in Durban yesterday.
In the course of not much more than half an hour, he led Wales down the garden path defying anyone to lay a hand on him. Like the teddy bear in the nursery rhyme, he took them round and round until they didn’t know whether they were coming or going.
By the time the Free State Cheetah from the old Dutch colonial town of Stellenbosch decided he had done enough tormenting for one day, Wales were in another fine mess.
In boxing parlance, they had been stopped a long way inside the distance. While Willie took the opportunity to smell the flowers, Wales were smelling the salts by which time they had been resigned to another exercise in damage limitation.
Willie made three of the five Springbok tries and scored the fourth himself, no mean effort this because it entailed fending George North off in the process.   When the Lord is on your side, anything’s possible including wrestling your way past Goliath intruders from foreign lands.
If Le Roux, by modern Test measurements a comparative will-o’-the-wisp at just over 6ft and 14st could out-muscle a man several inches taller and four stone heavier, what chance did the rest have?
When it came to some of the rougher stuff, Wales still couldn’t get a handle on him.
Jamie Roberts’ reckless tip-tackle brought Le Roux crashing down, the Welsh centre escaping a red card because his opponent managed to land more on his side than his head.
Apart from driving congregations at chapels the length of the country to ask the Lord this morning for a matchwinner of divine power, what else can Wales do? In the improbable event of one landing in their midst before next Saturday’s re-match, Wales seem doomed.
They did start well, for all of the first three minutes. Liam Williams drew the last defender for what should have been a run-in try for Alex Cuthbert had the pass not tested the wing’s limited skills as a high-speed juggler. Seconds later, Wales unleashed North on the opposite wing and Dan Biggar dropped the opening goal.
Regrettably, but not surprisingly, that was as good as it got for Wales.
Like the All Blacks against England earlier in the day, the Springboks subjected Wales to a lesson in precision finishing at Olympian pace.  But for some frantic defensive work, like Taulupe Faletau’s cover tackle on Cornal Hendricks, the Boks would have had 40 points in the first 40 minutes.
Wales may take some comfort from the second half but not much. Yes, Samson Lee, strangely ignored throughout the Six Nations, gave further evidence that there is more, far more, to him than a prop with the strongest name in the game.
Gareth Davies, behind his own Scarlets‘ team-mate Rhodri Williams in the national pecking order, made the most of a belated first opportunity and, glory be, even James Hook managed to get on for more than the last ten minutes.
In the context of another lost Test match, none of the above made any difference. Warren Gatland believed, for reasons best known to himself, that Wales would be good enough to win.
Instead, it turned out to be the same old story. No team in the world out-muscles the Springboks because theirs is the supreme power game and yet no team pitches up, season-in, season-out, more willing to take them on at their strongest suit than Wales.
The head coach conceded that Wales had been “out-muscled physically in the first half which was very disappointing”. It was also very, very predictable, as was the suspicion that the deposed Six Nations champions were not in the best condition.
As Gatland said: “We just didn’t look fit enough out there in the first half.” What did he expect given that his players, almost without exception, had not played one match in five weeks?
For the record, Wales have played South Africa 15 times in the last 14 years and lost the lot. Next Saturday, far from changing the habit of a lifetime, will inevitably result in more of the same.
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on June 15.