Category: Rugby

Wales 21 – 10 Scotland

Wales versus Scotland was a strange game, it was clear that both sides had not played for a long time as discipline was an issue throughout. With the number of penalties that both sides were conceding, making it a very stop start affair.

Scotland, having been improving of late, and their coach promising to play the fastest rugby on the planet, faltered. Their attack was narrow and lacking creativity, and as such was very easy to defend.

The Welsh defence was strong but it was hard to truly gauge how strong as they weren’t really tested. The line speed was excellent meaning that Scotland were getting pushed further and further back whenever they had the ball. Eventually being forced to give possession back to the men in red, who looked far more threatening with ball in hand.

Wales took their tries well, with George North evading three tackles, including both centres, to power to the line. It was was also awesome to see Jonathan Davies touch down, after a year out of the game due to injury. He and man of the match Justin Tipuric are two of, in my opinion, the most talented players in Wales.

Wales are notorious for starting slow in their Autumn campaigns, with this being the first opening match win in over fifteen years. It wasn’t pretty, but as Sam Warburton said on the analyst desk, International sport is about winning.

Wales will go on to face Australia on the 11th Nov and that will surely be a far more serious test to see where Wales are. Their defence and discipline will need to be watertight. They will be challenged in ways that they weren’t against Scotland and that will be a fascinating game. Australia like playing in Cardiff and the scores are always close with the Wallabies dominating the “W” column.

I don’t predict Wales will win that game, but I’m always happy to be wrong.

The 2018 Six Nations has ended, and it was quite a strange one. Wales finished second having beaten Scotland, Italy and France at home, and losing to England and Ireland Away. Despite finishing second, there wasn’t a great deal to celebrate and it feels a disappointing tournament.

I think a part of the disappointment has come from the way Wales played in the first game. An inaccurate Scotland were swept aside by a Wales team taking the ball to the line, and putting runners into space with offloads.

Across the remainder of the tournament Wales seemed to flounder back into old patterns, showing glimpses of brilliance within a frustratingly dull play-style.

For the life of me I cannot understand the strategy Wales employ when their first team are all available. Wales constantly kick possession away. As soon as they are anywhere near the 10m lines, the strategy is to kick an up-and-under and hope to regain possession 20 yards further up the field. Far more often than not however, all this does is give the ball to the opposition. Alongside this, Wales never kick to touch, constantly allowing teams space and time to attack. Gatland will say it’s because he believes in the fitness and defensive prowess of his team. However, without the ball you can’t win the game.

It may work against poor teams, but if Wales want to beat the best then they can’t practice a strategy that won’t work against them. If you constantly give possession to the All Blacks you will lose. They know how to retain the ball and grind out penalties, while also playing with their heads up and grasping every opportunity they get to score.

Wales play a style reliant on perfection of execution and they aren’t good enough to do it. So we end up as fans watching a team starving themselves of possession and then making mistakes when they get it.

One positive is that through injuries, Wales have given experience to a host of new players. These players took their chances well and played a fantastic style of traditional Welsh rugby. When given the chance however Gatland returned to form.

It’s great that Wales finished second, though no team was really setting the tournament alight and Ireland thoroughly deserved their Grand Slam.

Lions 15 – 15 New Zealand

Lions 2017 Series Tied

In the wake of the fantastic, but disappointing, first game of the series, a whole plethora of articles and commentators have dissected the game. I won’t repeat that but I do want to focus on one particularly worrying thing. The sheer power of the New Zealand game.

Going into the game the story was going to be Lions power versus All Black flair, the reality of the situation however proved to be quite different. Flair was evident on both sides with the magical 80m try finished off by Sean O’Brien. Power however, was lacking from the Lions and overwhelming from the All Blacks, which proved the critical difference.

The All Blacks dominated the contact area, they were more aggressive in defence and almost always secured an extra metre or two in attack. They defended their rucks with few men and on two occasions secured turnovers with only one defender in the ruck, which simply should not be allowed.

With ball in hand the All Blacks defied all expectations by playing a pure power game, playing off 9 and sending powerful ball carriers around the fringes of rucks time after time. The Lions defenders were simply unable to hit the All Blacks back and slow down their game. With quick ball secured and metres gained, New Zealand were their usual ruthless selves in finishing off the opportunities they created.

This was certainly a victory in strategy as well as execution and the Lions players and coaching staff were comprehensively beaten. Going forward into the second test the Lions need to increase their physicality.  The Lions to a man need to smash players backwards, slow the All Blacks down, prevent their offloads.

Finally, one gripe I had with the strategy was a hangover from “WarrenBall” the style of play that Gatland uses for Wales. Whenever the Lions had the ball between the 10m lines the strategy was to kick for an up and under (hence the pick of Conor Murray over the far more lethal Rhys Webb). In my opinion this is a lack of ideas and reliance on chance to get the ball back. Most of the time the only result was handing possession back to the best team on the planet, who can hold onto it with patience and force you into mistakes.