France……………………………41pts
Tries: Penaud 10, 77; Danty 34, Atonio 44, Fickou 49
Conversions: Ramos 12, 35, 45, 50, 78 Penalties: Ramos 26, 30
Tries: North 8, Roberts 56, Williams 66, Dyer 80
Conversions: Biggar 8, 57, 67; Halfpenny 80+1
For Alun Wyn Jones, the longest of Six Nations’ journeys was never meant to end like this: counted out inside the distance after the most damaging of all Welsh seasons.
A championship career like no other, most of it spent scaling every Himalayan peak except the Everest of the World Cup, required a farewell grand enough to acknowledge the trophies: three Grand Slams and four Triple Crowns hewn out of granite over a period of 16 years.
So much for the fairytale. Test rugby has always been reluctant to do the happily-ever-after stuff, least of all on behalf of the oldest member of an ageing team which had taken the full count in the opening round. Instead, what the 80,000 witnessed in Paris alongside the multi-millions on global television amounted to something which became increasingly inevitable, not that the man himself would appreciate the sentiment.
Well before the end, this had turned into the Six Nations requiem for a grand old warrior. At 37 going on 38, Jones will plough on towards a fifth World Cup but, as for the Six Nations, there will be no more tomorrows.
His longevity will endure, defying even the fittest and the luckiest to equal it. While even the phenomenal Johnny Sexton falls two years short of Swansea’s marathon man, they stand poles apart on the World Cup spectrum.
While one is in with a serious chance of winning it, his Celtic contemporary can only hope to be there with a team whose realistic ambitions do not extend beyond the quarter-finals.
Jones may have been showing his age over the course of the tournament but it was not his fault that Welsh ambitions had shrivelled, from almost winning a Grand Slam under his captaincy two years ago to avoiding the wooden spoon.
They only managed that by a whisker, one mistake denying Italy a win at Murrayfield when they had Scotland on the ropes. Such a scenario would have challenged Wales to find a point and by the time they actually found it, via a fourth try, Jones had departed.
Having tried to manage without him in two of the three previous rounds, Warren Gatland‘s recall of the world’s most-capped player had nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with pragmatism. That Wales still need him can be interpreted as a damning indictment of a cupboard bare enough to make Old Mother Hubbard’s look over-stocked.
The way they started made a brief mockery of fears about them being on the wrong end of the sort of horrid mismatch as befell England seven days earlier. Wales bristled with a conviction as they did in days of yore when Jones barked the orders.
He barked at least one again yesterday, cranking up the volume to make sure referee Nic Berry heard it. “That’s five penalties and a tip-tackle,” the old captain called out to the new one, Ken Owens, during the first quarter with the match tied at 7-7. By then the Australian referee had allowed Gael Fickou to dodge the sin-bin for tipping Jones above the horizontal. Like an old soldier refusing to leave his post, Jones dragged himself back to his feet only to leave six minutes later for the obligatory head injury assessment.
When he returned shortly before half-time, a close-run contest had started its inexorable slide towards a foregone conclusion. In the 13 minutes it took Jones to return, France scored 13 points without reply, the majority from the unforgiving boot of the redoubtable Thomas Ramos.
Welsh veterans of the biannual pilgrimage had taken their seats hoping to witness as miraculous a finish to the finale of this championship as the start of the one at the wonderfully atmospheric Parc des Princes almost 50 years ago.
Back in January 1975, the visitors’ selection of a team containing six Test novices provoked warnings of dire consequences which the new Wales made look ridiculous, winning by a record margin which still stands.
The old Wales turned up in the same city with six more changes which conspired to make them older still than when starting the most demoralising of all campaigns six long weeks ago. At least they gave this one a go in stark contrast to the grim surrender of their opener against Ireland.
George North’s try, made by Owens’ pack and Rhys Webb’s sumptuous pass, seemed a bit too good to be true. When France deigned to open their box of tricks, they did so without quite emulating the sustained beauty of their exhibition at Twickenham. They didn’t have to.
Their purple patch lasted barely 20 minutes, long enough to put Wales away with three converted tries in rapid succession. At 34- 7, the best team ever to finish runners-up in the Six Nations were over the hill and far away.
Between the gigantic Uini Atonio brushing Louis Rees-Zammit off for the third try in the 43rd minute and Fickou’s majestic fourth five minutes later, a significant exit took place. Jones had left his most familiar stage for the last time.
As if to honour their absent leader, Wales rallied to end a grim tournament on a rousing note, mining a seam creative enough to yield three converted tries of their own, four in all. France in cruise-control mode for most of the last quarter suggested they knew that England were never going to be able to do them a favour in Dublin.
Only Ireland were good enough to do that, in a winning cause. Wales did so in a lost one but after what they have gone through in recent weeks, bouncing from pillar to post and back again, nobody will begrudge them something to be proud of.
The cast will be very different next year, what with a number of gallant old soldiers – Owens, Dan Biggar, Leigh Halfpenny, Justin Tipuric, Webb, North – likely to call it time post-World Cup.
Each and every one will leave gaping holes in tomorrow’s Six Nations Wales but none as gaping as the one left by Jones, a permanent fixture on an ever-changing landscape since a time when England still held the World Cup.
