Lake gives body and soul to lift Wales
THE sixth best team in Europe against the double world champions on neutral ground in London sounded ominously like another of those embarrassing mis-matches.
The challengers' arrival at Twickenham in such a threadbare condition would have had the Springbok hierarchy wondering whether the opposition were in a fit state to give them a game ahead of the infinitely more serious business back home, the grudge series against Ireland.
Since their Six Nations whitewash, Wales had lost more than 20 players due to injury, non-availability and suspension. They lost another during the week for an altogether different reason, Sam Parry checking out of the training camp reportedly in protest at a lack of respect from head coach Warren Gatland.
The disappearing acts didn't end with the capped Ospreys hooker walking out in high dudgeon. Ludicrously, two of the starting team had been left no option but to walk off and serve time in the bin within 15 minutes of kick-off with the Boks 14-3 clear.
In their over-anxiety to prop up a fractured defence, first Rio Dyer, then Aaron Wainwright, left referee Chris Busby no option but to brandish his yellow card. Wales, unable to prevent two converted tries with a full team, were down to 13 and in grave danger of paying a savage price for their indiscipline.
Long years of neglect exposed a team shored up by Test novices to defeat on a demoralising scale.
The neglect had been largely of the Welsh Rugby Union's making, a by-product of their lavish investment in Team Wales at the expense of their four regional operations.
Like a flower withering on the vine, the assembly lines bearing the next generation suffered on a nationwide scale from a lack of proper maintenance. And so it came to pass three months ago that the governing body reaped as it had sown, a wooden spoon.
Now, with the game still in its opening quarter, Welsh supporters the world over would have been prepared for the ghastly sight of watching the most ruthless of teams set about finishing what was left of theirs.
Mercifully, it never happened, partly because the Boks' ruthless edge had been blunted by rust, understandably so given that they had not played an international fixture of any description during the eight months since retaining the World Cup against New Zealand in Paris.
“Taking a shot at goal from inside their own half showed the match was still to be won”
Far from throwing in the towel, Wales ensured that it never happened by their gutsy reaction to a grim scenario. In dragging his team back onto their feet, one man more than any showed them how to bounce off the ropes and go the distance.
Dewi Lake gave body and soul to the cause so effectively that Faf de Klerk, the most impish of scrum-halves, hurried to hoof the ball into the crowd and secure half-time as a refuge from the Welsh revival.
The Boks had seen their commanding early lead shrivel to one point thanks to Lake's barnstorming corner try and Sam Costelow's two goals. It sounds staggering, but the World Cup holders had pushed their luck to avoid falling behind. Twice Wales went to within one accurate pass of finishing off moves initiated on both occasions by Liam Williams, hence de Klerk's pragmatic reaction to an unexpectedly fraught period.
The break allowed Die Bokke to get their ship back on even keel. Makazole Mapimpi's touchline streak eased fears of a nationwide nervous breakdown raised by the spectre of losing to patchwork opponents.
Even then Wales had cause to feel hard done by. Jesse Kriel's pass appeared to be an open-and-shut case of forward but the TMO (Ireland's Mark Patton) decreed otherwise, ironically so on a day when he was never slow to intervene on other matters of law.
When the admirable Pieter-Steph du Toit prefaced his interview by giving thanks to ‘our heavenly Father,' the forward pass might have been uppermost in the Springbok captain's mind.
Whatever else Wales lacked, it certainly wasn't a failure to put their bodies on the line. Ospreys prop Gareth Thomas did so to spectacular effect, denying Evan Roos a try and requiring lengthy treatment before soldiering on.
Mason Grady saved another try with his tackle on Andre Esterhuizen before Lake's pack generated the collective power to give the Bok eight a dose of their own medicine, shunting them over their own line only to be denied the try that would almost certainly have closed the gap to four points going into the final quarter.
Busby ruled no-try but took the precaution of referring it to the TMO. After forensice examination, Patton told the referee he could find ‘no clear evidence to overturn your decision.'
The best compliment that the world's No. 1 team paid Wales came a few moments later. Taking a shot at goal from inside their own half amounted to a tacit admission that the match had still to be won.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who had been eligible for England through his father, Nick, announced himself on the Test arena by unleashing a missile struck so perfectly that it soared over the dead-ball zone as well as the crossbar. He might just be the next big thing on the global stage.
Wales knew then they had fired their last shot. Lake would have suspected all along that they would pay for the lack of precision just before half-time when the Boks twice found themselves in a state of emergency.
They did so, finishing as they started with two converted tries. On days like these in such hard times, Wales are grateful for small mercies. They lost, as everyone knew they would, but at least they didn't lose their credibility, unlike previous mishaps in London (0-51 France, Wembley 1998, 5-62, England, Twickenham 2007).
Ireland, whose pyrrhic victory over the Boks in the pool stage of the World Cup still rankles with the holders, will have watched with a vested interest from their Dublin camp, likewise Australia from theirs.
The losers of that two-match series will be in peril of dropping out of the world's top ten, a fate which ought to galvanise Wales into stopping the rot. The real question is not whether they have the heart but whether they have the nous and the skills to do to the Wallabies what they did to them in Lyon last September.
