S o that’s that fixed then. Wales are back, and all is right with the world. Suddenly the dysfunction at the union, the financial plight, the disputes, the emptying stadiums, the defeats – oh, the defeats – feel a very long way away. The All Blacks have been beaten. Seventy-three years of hurt, no more need for dreaming.
The euphoria in the Principality Stadium, however many people were there – or more pertinently not – seemed as eerily familiar as it was cathartic. This was how Cardiff used to feel on match day.
Amid the celebrations, though, Steve Tandy, coach and leading grown-up in Wales, will remain on an even keel. He knows how quickly Welsh rugby can turn itself on its head. There is this win for a start. No one quite knows where it came from, given a record since the last World Cup that read five wins from 31, three against Japan, one against Italy and one against Fiji. Hardly the roll call.
What a difference six from 32 makes. This time a year ago, Wales beat Japan by a point, shipped 50-plus to Argentina and New Zealand and lost 73-0 – that’s 73-0 – to South Africa in this same stadium. And here we are, a 73-year monument gleefully smithereened by a set of players who look really, really good.
“The difference in 12 months is we’re building a group,” said Tandy. “There was a young group then that needed care. They are still young men, but they are growing. They are getting confident. You see them playing well in Wales and outside Wales. It’s about giving them the freedom, because Wales is a tough place to play. We like throwing stones.”
Certainly, to be a rugby watcher in England is to wonder what all the fuss was about. There seem to be Welshmen at every turn tearing up the Prem with abandon. Gloucester are top of the table, thanks in no small part to the form of Dewi Lake, Jac Morgan and Max Llewellyn. Tomos Williams has been a shining light for a few years now, first at Gloucester, now at Saracens, where there was little surprise at Rhys Carre’s try of the Six Nations last season.
Louis Rees-Zammit, Aaron Wainwright, Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Nicky Smith, Dafydd Jenkins, Archie Griffin – on the list goes. That’s more than half a team, right there, and they are not filler but players of great class. It does make you wonder how those horrible years of late ever came to pass.
But they are playing over the border – and there is Adam Beard of Montpellier to consider too – because matters at home remain troubled. This win will not have solved the ongoing conundrum of the four regions that Wales have never embraced. It will not fix the numbers on the balance sheet that do not add up.
For so long, Wales prioritised their show team, almost to the exclusion of all else. It is a dangerous strategy, because you better hope that team keeps winning. The passing of a golden generation in the past five years or so has plunged Wales into a kind of crisis, but just as damaging has been the relentless improvement in the competition. Perhaps it has been less the decline of Wales, more the ferocity of the competition in international rugby that has been the problem.
The inquest into the “Welsh problem” have been extensive. This paper has published several, including one by my colleague Andy Bull only a few weeks ago, which spoke of mutiny . The good news is that beneath all the turbulence a new Wales team has been coalescing. As in a field of bulbs, its flowers suddenly burst into the light on Saturday.
Wales will lose plenty in the coming months, quite possibly starting next Saturday night, when Australia visit to bring down the curtain on the round-robin stage of this virgin championship. No one with any kind of memory of rugby will fail to appreciate how a team can collapse after the sort of euphoria experienced here against the All Blacks. But a win like this must help the mission in the long term.
“We have a group that can see the journey ahead,” said Tandy. “I think it’s just an amazing group. They love coming to work. I can’t wait for every Monday. Whether we win or lose, this group turn up. They’re really honest. They are starting to understand what it takes to win. It isn’t just about the Saturday. We want to improve every day, every week.”
Breakthrough wins advance any project, however beset by adversity. Of all the wins to have chosen, New Zealand after 73 years surely breaks through more than any.
