Wales show defiance but the wait goes on
PETER JACKSON
All week long the Red Dragon legions had planned their regimental mobilisation with just enough military precision to let them catch the action in Auckland, a bit of R & R before the serious business.
What they witnessed would have shaken them rigid because it had never been seen before: a Welshman, born and bred in Cardiff, tearing up the All Blacks for England. In doing so, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, ‘Manny’ to his mates, provided damning evidence that Wales have lost rather more than too many matches.
The number had risen to nine within a few hours of the Red Rose convert giving New Zealand both barrels, long enough for those hitherto unaware of his explosive ability to ask how it came to this; that a boy introduced to the game at Corpus Christi School in Cardiff in tandem with one of the capital’s junior clubs, Rumney RFC, felt more at home with England.
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That he happens to be a specialist outside centre, a position where Wales have suffered from a chronic shortage of contenders in the years since Jonathan ‘Fox’ Davies at his peak, makes ‘Manny’s’ exit all the more galling.
That would still be so had Wales maintained a lengthy winning streak in Melbourne yesterday instead of extending their losing one beyond another overgrown milestone. Nine in a row, one more than under Warren Gatland in 2012-13, adds up to the longest for 21 years, since Steve Hansen reached double figures from which he recovered to win successive World Cups.
Fiji are next up for Wales in November followed by two more home matches against the Wallabies and Springboks, then a continental start to the Six Nations, France in Paris, Italy in Rome. Despite Fiji displacing them in the world’s top ten, Wales will be expected to beat them at home but then they said that of Italy at the end of the Six Nations and look what happened.
While those concerned struggled to find a single positive to take from that one, beyond being all the better for a restorative kick up the rear end, taking the positives has become Wales’ default position since the rot set in against Argentina at the World Cup ten months ago.
If it’s really true that no lessons are more instructive than those forged in adversity, then Gatland might be onto something with his bold after-match promise that ‘this is going to be a really good team’.
A red Phoenix rising from the ashes is still a long way off but there can be no denying that a few squawks of defiance could be heard in Melbourne. Wales may not have found a win but they have found an inspiring captain in Dewi Lake as well as a pair of Test-class props in Archie Griffin and the under-rated Gareth Thomas.
James Botham did the family name proud, rising to the unenviable challenge of minimising Aaron Wainwright’s formidable absence. Christ Tshiunza has stood up to be counted in a way which makes him an integral part of the pack, at lock or blindside.
Behind the scrum, Rio Dyer gave a timely reminder of a genuine Test wing, bumping off a trio of Wallabies for a try against all the odds.
Elsewhere there are still too many questions and too few answers. The jury is still out on a number of positions, chiefly flyhalf and centre. Neither Ben Thomas, below right, nor Sam Costelow has laid any permanent claim to a position which may well revert to Gareth Anscombe next season provided he masters the difficult art of staying in one piece.
As a midfield pair, Mason Grady and Owen Watkin have still to show that theirs is a partnership with a future at Test level. In the meantime, the cry for the gigantic Grady to be redeployed on the wing, at the start not towards the end, will become louder still.
And so for something completely different, taking the negatives, a long way short of acquiring cliché status for the simple reason that no losing coach ever raises the subject publicly.
In Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones and George North, Sky assembled a trio of serial Grand Slammers whose monumental achievements are unlikely to be challenged let alone surpassed. Perhaps they were too concerned with praising Wales to say anything critical of their opponents.
The Wallabies have improved considerably since the World Cup, not that they could possibly have got any worse. They are still a long way below par and yet they won this series 2-0, deservedly so which means they have won all six home series against Wales by an aggregate score of 13-0.
They did so despite starting as if doubly eager to make Wales feel at home, wasting no time extending their welcome beyond the familiar rain by doing their unwitting best to give the visitors a seven-point start.
How appropriate that, in the downpour, who should push the hospitality boat out a long way at the start but a man called Noah, as in Noah Lolesio. His pass to nobody that dribbled across the face of the posts cried out for a Welshman to accept the gift.
Instead Tom Wright got there first to follow up his scorching try in Sydney the previous week by initiating another. He shifted the ball on to Andrew Kellaway who chipped ahead, beat Cameron Winnett to the bounce and sent Fraser McReight haring clear before he allowed Filipo Daugunu to finish off the 98-metre move.
Twice Wales put some serious skids under the Aussies, Lake twice finishing off text-book lineout drives in the course of eight minutes before half-time. Yet they were still in with a chance almost until the very end only to be left counting the exorbitant price of too many critical mistakes.
Winnett’s failure to take a high ball cost one try while Liam Williams’ commendably acrobatic attempt to prevent a penalty finding touch resulted in another. And then, when they were within comfortable mauling range of what would at best have been an equalising try, Wales twice allowed the Wallabies to steal possession.
Not even Feyi-Waboso could have done much about that…
