Saturday's result may have been infinitely tiresome in its oh-so-predictable cruelty, but after watching the second quarter-final, it's hard not to conclude that Wales have dodged a bullet. They'll go home with praise ringing in their ears, and the usual "still didn't win though" caveats will seem pretty hollow, given the ridiculous handicaps they were under. Would it really be worth staying around another week in their besieged field hospital, just for the dubious honour of playing tackle-bags to that imperious All Blacks side? The damage to morale - not to mention personnel - could have been huge.
As it stands - and provided they can get at least a majority of the casualties back in place in time - Wales will be looking forward to the 2016 Six Nations with some relish. Ultimately futile heroics at the 2011 World Cup lent Wales a momentum that brought a 6N Grand Slam in 2012. The growth that has been evident in this beleaguered Welsh squad over the last few weeks may reasonably be expected to translate to the "home front" in similar fashion.
No-one would deny that problems remain for Gatland's Wales to solve. But team spirit is demonstrably not among them.
Sunday, 18 October 2015
Sunday, 4 October 2015
Group Of Death, Be Not Proud...
The RWC2015 "Group of Death" has done what it said on the tin.
It should never have been allowed to happen, of course. Basing the seedings on world rankings three years out was daft, and unnecessary. Wales' artificially low ranking in late 2012, based almost entirely on a ruinous run of close defeats to Australia, may have been a folly of Wales' own making (the final defeat, in an unnecessary "extra" autumn fixture, confirmed the low ranking) but the situation it created was not. Of course, most observers confidently expected Wales themselves to be the victims of the consequence, so objections in the wider rugby world were muted. One suspects they will grow in the aftermath.
What of Wales? Well, even with the enormous increase in faith that this team have certainly earned, it feels like giddy fancy to imagine them winning another match. Australia look in dazzling form, and beyond them wait a resurgent South Africa after the mother of all wake-up calls. For the immediate future, however, Welsh fans shouldn't give a damn, To get out of that group, in the condition Wales were in going into it, let alone that which developed, is a major achievement. A couple of heavy defeats now would take the gloss off, but we'd still look back at a modest but creditable success in hugely testing circumstances.
On the world stage, they've earned new respect. On the local circuit, there's the added bonus of the bragging rights associated with getting further than England for the second RWC running, fulsomely avenging the punishing 6N defeat earlier this year. The next few 6N games between the teams will be played in that context, which should boost Welsh confidence as it did before. The injury crisis, damaging as it is, is already yielding compensations as ways are found to cope. Several fringe players have come through a grueling experience in a manner that suggests that Welsh strength-in-depth is, if not at the dizzy heights of adequacy, at least extant.
England are in pieces; the revival that seemed to be building has stuttered and now stalled, and major upheaval seems likely. It's a tough time for their fans; so tough that even the inevitable Welsh schadenfreude has been tinged with some genuine empathy. But that will only last until they start winning again, and no-one imagines that's too far away.
It should never have been allowed to happen, of course. Basing the seedings on world rankings three years out was daft, and unnecessary. Wales' artificially low ranking in late 2012, based almost entirely on a ruinous run of close defeats to Australia, may have been a folly of Wales' own making (the final defeat, in an unnecessary "extra" autumn fixture, confirmed the low ranking) but the situation it created was not. Of course, most observers confidently expected Wales themselves to be the victims of the consequence, so objections in the wider rugby world were muted. One suspects they will grow in the aftermath.
What of Wales? Well, even with the enormous increase in faith that this team have certainly earned, it feels like giddy fancy to imagine them winning another match. Australia look in dazzling form, and beyond them wait a resurgent South Africa after the mother of all wake-up calls. For the immediate future, however, Welsh fans shouldn't give a damn, To get out of that group, in the condition Wales were in going into it, let alone that which developed, is a major achievement. A couple of heavy defeats now would take the gloss off, but we'd still look back at a modest but creditable success in hugely testing circumstances.
On the world stage, they've earned new respect. On the local circuit, there's the added bonus of the bragging rights associated with getting further than England for the second RWC running, fulsomely avenging the punishing 6N defeat earlier this year. The next few 6N games between the teams will be played in that context, which should boost Welsh confidence as it did before. The injury crisis, damaging as it is, is already yielding compensations as ways are found to cope. Several fringe players have come through a grueling experience in a manner that suggests that Welsh strength-in-depth is, if not at the dizzy heights of adequacy, at least extant.
England are in pieces; the revival that seemed to be building has stuttered and now stalled, and major upheaval seems likely. It's a tough time for their fans; so tough that even the inevitable Welsh schadenfreude has been tinged with some genuine empathy. But that will only last until they start winning again, and no-one imagines that's too far away.
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