Peter Jackson comment: Sorry, Dr Roberts, but the only diagnosis can be that it’s been gruesome

Jamie Roberts described the Springbok experience pre-match in one word: gruesome, as in the context of wounded Lions queuing up for ambulances after their last stand at Loftus Versveld six years ago.
Nobody would dare question the Welsh warrior’s prognosis, one based on his having spent more than enough time up close and personal with the most physical beasts in the rugby jungle. Gruesome could also be applied as a one-word summation of another Welsh near-miss, but not in the way Dr Roberts could have imagined.
When the tidal waves of emotion subside and the inquests begin there will be no escaping the cold reality.  The verdict of misadventure will be passed on Wales at this World Cup exactly as it was at the last one four years ago.
It will make for gruesome reading, especially for the likes of Sam Warburton and Toby Faletau whose monumental campaigns as two of the very best back- row forwards on the planet deserved to take them all the way.
The reasons why their next match will be for their regions in the PRO12 and not a semi-final against New Zealand are all too easy to identify. Wales are out not because of their brutal casualty list, nor for any lack of gallantry above and beyond the call of collective duty.
They are out because in the fury swirling all around them at critical moments, nobody could apply the cold-eyed finish.  They had a two-man advantage against Australia with the Wallabies spread-eagled on the ropes and still failed to knock them out. Gruesome.
They had 11 minutes to land the telling blow, long enough to have secured a less challenging quarter-final against Scotland.  Another gruesome moment against the Springboks ensured that Wales compounded George North‘s error of judgment against the Aussies when he turned inside to look for contact instead of going for the corner.
North started yesterday like a runaway freight train.   His careering run towards the left corner threw the Boks into such turmoil that when Wales switched direction there was barely a green-shirted soul left at home to stop them cruising over.
Gethin Jenkins has done many famous things in his time for Wales and the Lions but he will find it hard to watch what he did in the third minute. With Tyler Morgan in isolated splendour on the right wing, all Jenkins had to do was put the ball in his hands.
Instead he fired it over the novice centre’s head clean into touch, a blunder which took some doing given that Morgan is more than six feet tall. Nobody, of course, knows how a try then would have changed the game but one thing’s for sure – it would have had an instantly demoralising impact on the Boks.
Apart from the one try they did get, a feat of engineering and acrobatics as performed by the dazzling Dan Biggar and finished by the predatory Gareth Davies, Wales never got remotely close to shredding their opponents as they did in the third minute.
Gruesome hardly does justice to Jenkins’ pass. Wales deserve the country’s undying admiration for making light of a heavy injury load and yet they were shouldering a burden of recurring failure which, not surprisingly, has come home to haunt them.
In five matches at this World Cup, Welsh wings have amassed the grand total of one try – Hallam Amos against Uruguay.    England (7), Ireland (6) and Scotland (5) have all managed more from one game fewer.
The solitary match-winning intervention by a Welsh wing came during Lloyd Williams’ brief time there in an emergency role at Twickenham a fortnight earlier, his left-footed flick enough to put a second-rate England out of their misery.
Another gruesome fact revolves around Cuthbert – surely the only wing with twice as many yellow cards as tries to show for his last 11 Tests, his only touchdown arriving long after Wales had lost the first of their summer friendlies against Ireland.
Few players could have had a more miserable World Cup and that was before Fourie du Preez exposed Cuthbert’s defensive frailty yet again for the decisive try six minutes from time.
The scrum-half might not have made it to the corner but for Cuthbert allowing himself to be suckered into leaving his wing in the hope of stopping Duane Vermeulen who had already been shackled around one ankle by Lloyd Williams.
In one respect it was little short of miraculous that Wales got this far, what with four starting full-backs in the five matches, including one, Matthew Morgan, whom Warren Gatland, no less, hailed as having “a bit of the X-factor”.
It takes more than all the routine bodyline stuff to win a World Cup. Might Morgan not have been a useful last-ditch option with time running out and a try required, the very scenario at Twickenham yesterday.   Instead he was nowhere to be seen, deemed surplus to requirements.
A little creativity might have gone a long way.   Instead Morgan got 55 minutes against Uruguay only because of injury and a start against Fiji again only because every other option had been exhausted, bar one.
Instead, Wales gave the distinct impression that they didn’t trust Morgan. In which event why pick him?
Another heart-breaking near-miss reduced some to tears yesterday, almost as if they had seen it all before. And they had because there’s no escaping the fact that in 30 matches against the Big Three since Gatland began his reign with the Grand Slam seven years ago, Wales have lost 28.
Gruesome.