Welsh rugby fans were once again taken through the same routine on Saturday afternoon. The game looked to be in favour of the home side after 25 minutes, leading 16-3 and depicting the flow of play. Predictably, awful spells immediately before and after half time saw the South Africans score 28 points in the game’s 2nd and 3rd quarter to move the score-line to a more familiar 19-31. As we’ve come to expect from Wales, a late flourish threatened a late comeback ala Scotland in the Six Nations, but it was not to be, with Peter De Villiers’ team running out 31-34 winners claiming their 22nd win in 24 meetings against Wales.
The first 25 minutes was a step in the right direction, the lineout was functioning, the scrum was solid, defence was impenetrable and the forwards were making hard yards (even Ryan Jones!). The highlight of the period was when James Hook was the grateful recipient of an interception pass via the hesitant John Smit. Hook beamed post-match that it was usually him giving those passes, but the Springbok hooker had a moment of madness where he shaped to kick, then sidestepped before throwing a looping pass to the left which the Ospreys man plucked and raced triumphantly under the posts to the glee of the Millennium Stadium faithful. Stephen Jones added the extras as well as a couple of earlier penalty goals, and James Hook was again on target with a drop goal on 11 minutes.
The restart following James Hook’s try was the beginning of the end for the boys in red. Immediately from the kick, Jonathan Thomas was penalised for a foolish challenge that maybe should have resulted in a yellow card, but Irishman Alan Lewis deemed a penalty alone was sufficient punishment, and indeed he would be proved right. Ruan Pienaar added the 3 points to go with his 16th minute effort and the deficit was reduced to 10. From that moment through till halftime, the Springboks mounted siege after siege of attacks on the heavily defended Welsh try-line, all to no avail until the half-hour mark. The ball was turned over on the Wales’ 22m line and a golden opportunity presented itself to Stephen Jones to clear his lines who by his own standards had a torrid afternoon. He scuffed his kick to debutant Gio Aplon who danced his way in behind the red defence. Quick possession at the ruck gave the Boks ample time to ship the ball to the left flank where Odwa Ndungane touched down and the try was given via supervision of the TMO. A further soft penalty saw Ruan Pienaar finish the half with the score at 16-14 and it seemed half-time had come at a perfect time for Wales as the Southern Hemisphere unit gathered momentum on their revival.
Whatever Warren Gatland said at half-time hadn’t worked because in the 42nd minute they were once again behind their own posts having conceded a try. Danie Roussouw had broken the line in the same manner that Bradley Davies had done time and again in the first half, however a neat offload to the charging Dewald Potgieter had been missing in the Wales ranks, not so from a South African perspective and the hosts trailed for the 1st time in the contest as the blonde Blue Bull dived over for his first international try.
Stephen Jones and Francois Steyn exchanged penalties in the 45th and 55th minutes respectively taking the score to 19-24. A period of kicking followed with an air of nervousness falling over the players in Cardiff. Wales were the first to buckle under the pressure and as James Hook tried to run the ball from inside his own half, support was inadequate and possession was turned over. The ball presented itself to rookie test centre Juan de Jongh which saw him ignore his overlap and step inside a drifting Stephen Jones and showed his Scarlet counterpart Matthew Rees a clean set of wheels as he motored over the line untouched. Pienaar added the conversion and the margin was 19-31 with 21 minutes to play. As expected, Wales mounted a final burst in the final 20 minutes that would save their blushes. First a record-breaking try for Tom Prydie that sees him become Wales’ youngest ever try-scorer over his namesake Tom Pearson, a record that had stood for over a century when the Newport and Cardiff winger scored against England in 1891. The 18 year old was the recipient of a deft pop pass under pressure from his Ospreys team-mate James Hook in the left hand corner on 72 minutes.
The mood was tense in the capitol as memories of Scotland and France echoed around the ground, which was it to be? It took one moment of familiar mediocrity from Ryan Jones to answer the question. Having taken the restart cleanly (somewhat surprisingly given his earlier blunders) he trundled into contact without making any yardage, he then fell to ground in a typically bad position and presented the South Africans with the turnover on a plate with bread and butter on the side. If that wasn’t bad enough he then got to his feet (slowly) and wandered offside at the ruck in a feeble attempt to halt Ricky Januarie. These 30 seconds summed up the skippers afternoon, once again uninspired.
As Ruan Pienaar prepared to take his match tally to 16 points, Peter De Villiers rang the changes making full use of his resources. One of which was Zane Kirchner who flapped at a high ball just moments after entering the arena allowing Leigh Halfpenny to pounce. He offloaded to Sam Warburton who took the ball up to the 5-metre line and unselfishly popped the ball to replacement Alun Wyn-Jones who scored close to the posts to cause alarm in the South African camp with just 3 minutes remaining. They needn’t have bothered, because soon after Stephen Jones’ conversion the ever-present leader of the red army Ryan Jones was once again on hand to present possession back to the Boks who humped the ball into the middle tier to the sound of Alan Lewis’ whistle and Wales were left to rue another missed opportunity.
With Warren Gatland this week labelling the game as the beginning of a “Golden Era” of Welsh rugby that could see the same successful side be together until the 2015 World Cup (apart from 3 older squad members), what does it prove? It proves a lot of things, but not many are positive.
The place of Robin McBryde must come under scrutiny. The forward’s coach works alongside Warren Gatland in analysisng and perfecting the lineout. Seeing as this is a full-time role of employment, would someone care to shed light on the fact that the Wales could only manage a success rate of 73.7% (14 from 19) on Saturday compared with South Africa 100% (3 from 3)? Understandably, the Welsh pack had a hell of a lot more lineouts than the Boks, but is that really an excuse for over-throwing or not timing the lift? It’s easy for the coach to say that they won 14 lineouts against arguably the world’s best lineout code-breaker in Victor Matfield, but the coaches should have identified that the Welsh lineout is targeted in every game, regardless of opposition. Take the six nations for example, throughout the tournament the Welsh lineout was tested a total of 71 times. Wales tested their opposition’s lineout 48 times in their 5 matches. This gives a clear indication that opposing coaches see the lineout as a weakness, and rightly so. Against Scotland, Ireland and England; the success rate of the lineout was 75%, 66.7% and 58.3% respectively. With this amount of possession squandered, is it really any surprise that the boys in red are struggling for results. Even more importantly, with the troubled area so seemingly clear to everyone in world rugby that even saw the Italians target the set-piece, why isn’t it clear to the men who matter?
Wales once again lacked the nous and fierce clinical edge that the Southern Hemisphere giants seem to possess. Given a 16-3 lead at home, do you see New Zealand letting Wales back into the game in the following weeks? I think we all know the answer to that.
It’s not all doom and gloom as we head down to the land of the Silver Fern. In the initial 25 minutes leading up to James Hook’s try, it was difficult to find a fault. The forwards carried well and Wales looked like a team capable of beating the world champions (minus their world champion players). Bradley Davies was immense throughout, but lacked the support when he crashed and barged his way over the gainline. Sam Warburton was a revelation turning over ball, tackling well and carrying like a Trojan horse and all this with a broken jaw sustained in the first half that will unfortunately see him miss the trip to New Zealand. The centre pairing of James Hook and Jamie Roberts is flourishing with the combination of brute, brawn and bone-crunching hits at 12 with the deft, delicate and deception at 13. Tom Prydie looked every part an international player and Mike Phillips was looking back to his physical best despite a few wayward passes letting him down.
The win would have sent us to New Zealand full of optimism to take on Dan Carter and the rest of the star-studded All Blacks. A repeat performance will see the Kiwi’s record a whitewash series win, of that there is no doubt. It is with caution we tread, but never underestimate the wounded dragon.
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