Shane Williams verdict: Wales lacked nous at crucial times
It was another great effort from Wales and they deserve to be praised for really rattling the Wallabies who are looking more and more like genuine World Cup contenders.
But the brutal truth is that we have lost – again.
Wales gave everything, defended magnificently and rucked and mauled on a par. But when it came to the crunch, they didn’t have the nous to win – even against 13 men.
They also lacked patience at crucial times.
Gareth Davies has been in great form but Australia knew what he was about and were waiting for him.
There were also a couple of times when Wales were going forward, either in the maul or at scrum, and he opted to go himself. It’s great that players back themselves but experience also tells you when to pick your moments.
Unfortunately so much of what Wales did behind the scrum was pretty easily telegraphed. Sometimes players looked out of position or decoy runners did not run good enough angles and Australia were able to hit their men way behind the gainline.
The tackle by Adam Ashley-Cooper on Dan Biggar on 68 minutes summed that up.
Wales had spent so long banging on the door against 13 men that they simply had to come away with some points, but they didn’t. You just know that the Wallabies or All Blacks would never have fallen short like that.
Instead, Australia cleared their ranks, they got their players back and were revitalised. I think everyone knew at that moment there was no coming back for Wales.
I don’t blame any of the decisions to go for the lineout or scrum. Against seven forwards, you have to back yourself and go for it. But some of the individual decision-making was not great.
However, defensively it was a wonderful effort. Let’s face it, Australia rarely threatened our try line and the likes of Adam Ashley-Cooper, Israel Folau and Drew Mitchell were kept very quiet. Much of that was due to the defending of Jamie Roberts and George North. They were excellent.
Even David Pocock struggled to have much of an impact and that was a huge credit to Sam Warburton and Justin Tipuric.
I was hopeful that the scrum showed improvement, especially early on. But whether it was down to Paul James and Samson Lee tiring, given their lack of full-match fitness, it began to creak alarmingly as the game wore on.
That’s an area Robin McBryde must look at this week – especially before facing South Africa.
The Boks love to scrummage and could cause Wales some real damage. What Wales need to do is take a leaf out of Japan’s book. Japan were completely out-muscled in that area so rather than try to compete, they used channel one to get the ball out as quickly as possible. Taulupe Faletau needed to do that far more against Australia.
Japan would then use guys like Mafi to pick up and drive and then they would play off the second phase. Wales should follow suit.
Saying that, I think Warren Gatland will be far more comfortable facing South Africa than Australia.
With the Boks, you know exactly what is coming at you so you can prepare for that and front up. Guys like Schalk Burger will come straight on and Wales have the physical presence to deal with that.
They are far more direct than Australia in attack and their defence has not looked as effective either. Teams have made plenty of line-breaks against them already and Wales can expose that.
The biggest shame, however, is knowing that life could have been a lot easier had they found a way to score that try against Australia. Beat South Africa and then there’s probably the All Blacks. Having already played England and Australia, no-one can accuse Wales of doing anything by half.
