Loose Pass: Contrasting fortunes, a blow and a great feat

David Skippers

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with suitable pragmatism, big dreams, the cutting of foundations and a word of congratulation…

Aiming too high?

Wayne Pivac was chosen, it was said, on the back of his attacking vision and his sound knowledge of the Welsh game after his singularly successful time at the Scarlets. Five games in, and things are not going well.

Wales lost the contest on every level against Scotland on Saturday. They were turned over multiple times, made unforced handling errors, often failed to find the gain line and rarely looked like breaking. The score was close, but the wind was a great leveller. It was a perfect chance for the team to re-assert their rugby authority, but it just never looked likely.

Perhaps the most damning aspect was the appearance of disorganisation and miscommunication though. Rarely did the players look as though they were on the same page for more than a couple of phases, while the final desperate minutes with the ball moving from side to side almost as fast as it went backwards were revealing.

There were times in the spring, when all was well and crowds were thronging and cheering, when although results were not going the right way, there did at least seem to be evidence of what it was Pivac and co wanted to change and achieve. It was more daring, it was moving the ball faster from ten and around the pitch, it was about asking more questions and letting the players play, back themselves and each other.

Change was never going to happen overnight, not when the successes of the prior decade had been so founded on pragmatism and emphasis on strategic and tactical accuracy. Also not when so many of those players from said decade were now being asked to change so quickly and under such extraordinary conditions.

Has Pivac tried to change too much too soon? Or has he aimed high for an expansive game-plan and fallen foul of the current strangling tightness that is international rugby? Or is there a need to roll over the generation of players? Or has the coronavirus disruption come at the worst moment for Pivac’s planned process?

The most likely story is a mix of all four, but Wales badly need to reset a bit, to get tight grips on a couple of games before heading into a November that will not relent, with games against Ireland and England. Ugly defeats there are virtual guarantees if the team is as disjointed as it was Saturday and questions will be asked of the direction in which Wales are headed.

How high can they aim?

The award of the 2023 World Cup to France caused consternation among many, but there cannot be any doubt now that the burgeoning French team is a long shot to win it. As one of our writers so accurately put it in conversation: when considering choosing a team of this tournament, it’s really a case of wondering which French players to replace.

In Charles Ollivon there is not only a leader of some distinction, there is a player at the very top of the world game in his position. Romain Ntamack now is where Johnny Sexton was a few years ago – no wonder the Irish fly-half left the pitch shaking his head.

The half-backs steer the games with maturity belying their years (23 and 21!!) while outside there is flair and vision, inside there is steel and focus. It’s a very French team, capable of the bizarre and the brilliant, but the tendency is towards the latter.

And back to that sentence, it’s a very French team. How long since we’ve really been able to say that? That, you suspect, is perhaps Fabien Galthie’s biggest achievement early in his tenure.

A body blow

It’s not the wrong decision, and nor does it spell the end of the game. But you feel that the decision to cancel all of England’s (surely soon to be Britain’s) rugby at tier three and down is going to be one that has an effect for years, decades even.

How many players will drift away? How many clubs will have to close? How many young players will never get their taste of the game, find themselves swept up by other sports and activities? How much smaller will this generation be? What will that mean for countries such as Scotland, where rugby already has such as small base?

Localities, counties and regions have been quick to stress that ending the leagues this season does not mean ending the game, and that as and when restrictions lift, there will be friendlies between neighbours, there will be touch games and programs to get people involved, there will be community efforts. Leagues and competition are not everything.

We might still lose one or two big-name professional clubs during this pandemic – most of the time, we’re given to understand that not having done so already is a minor miracle. But when this ghastly pandemic ends, and normality does return, rugby may look back on this moment as one that did the most damage.

Congratulations AWJ

Anyone would have wanted an occasion other than a disjointed defeat to Scotland in a blowy and empty Parc y Scarlets. But let that not diminish the achievement of Alun Wyn Jones in becoming rugby’s most-capped international player on Saturday.

We all at PR simply and sincerely hope that at least one more time he can lead his side out at a full Millennium Stadium – there would be no end more fitting to a marvellous career.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan

 

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