For Wales, a distinct sense of now or never surrounds their autumn series. If the need for all Northern Hemisphere sides to pick up morale-boosting wins against the Southern Hemisphere giants in the coming weeks is acute, with the World Cup looming large, it is even more so for the Welsh. There’s no point in re-hashing old statistics, but a certain monkey really needs to be removed from their back.
There has been a minor changing of the guard, with old stagers like Adam Jones and Ian Evans finding themselves out in the cold, giving the likes of Samson Lee and Jake Ball a chance to cement their places a year out from the World Cup.
STRENGTHS
In Rhys Webb and Dan Biggar, Wales have the form half-back pairing of the Northern Hemisphere. The two have steered the Ospreys’ blistering start to the season down its winning path, and the challenge now for Gatland and his coaching staff is to get them to reproduce that kind of form with new faces inside and out of them. Webb’s vision and ability to dart through gaps is complimented well by Biggar’s more pragmatic approach, with his tactical kicking game on the up.
There is another settled unit in the back-row, where the Grand Slam winning triumvirate of Lydiate, Warburton and Faletau team up again. If none have hit any particular heights form-wise this season, the tested combination of Lydiate’s chop-tackling, Warburton’s jackling and Faletau’s ball-carrying should be enough to convince Wales fans that their selection is the right one for the course of the series.
Of course, there is plenty of power in the side and the centre partnership of Jamie Roberts and George North for the Australia game has a frightening amount of gainline potential. Samson Lee at tighthead has boatloads of potential and it will be thrilling for scrum-lovers everywhere to see how he adapts with a proper run of starts in the side.
WEAKNESSES
There must be some concern about the readiness of several key players for a game the magnitude of the clash with Australia first up. Leigh Halfpenny hasn’t played a great deal of rugby in France this season; neither have Dan Lydiate or Mike Phillips. They cannot afford to take ten minutes to get up to speed, because the battle-hardened Wallabies certainly won’t.
A few others have hardly showed great form this season, either, with Alex Cuthbert and Sam Warburton hardly impressing in a misfiring Cardiff side so far. The counterpoint to this, of course, is that all the names mentioned usually save their best form for when they pull on the red of Wales
And then, of course, there is the psychological hurdle of having lost so many in a row to these sides. The players must believe that they are good enough to beat anyone that turns up at the Millenium Stadium gates, and at the moment it’s difficult to say if they do.
KEY PLAYERS
Samson Lee
“The tangerine one” has long been lauded as the heir apparent to Adam Jones, and now is his chance to prove it. He has a reputation as a solid scrummager, and that should give Wales a good chance to get stuck into the Aussies. Where he will be most tested, if still in the side, is of course against South Africa and the Beast. Come through that with his reputation intact, and you can be sure that he’ll become a fixture in this side for the future.
Jamie Roberts
Roberts has a massive amount of defensive responsibility, as long as he has George North next to him in the centre anyway. Defending the 13 channel is completely different to the wing, and Roberts will need to constantly be in North’s ear, telling him where to be, when to rush up and when to stand off, etc. If they can get that right, then it is a partnership that can devastate in attack, although Roberts will most likely also be charged with more distribution than usual, given that is hardly what North is famed for.
WIN/LOSS PREDICTION
On paper, Wales have easily enough to keep up with the best the Southern Hemisphere has to offer. A strong set-piece, good ball-carriers and plenty of pace out wide are all boxes that have been ticked. To be honest, writing a preview of their autumn series is an excruciatingly difficult thing to do, because they have the potential to play as they did when handing England an 30-3 hiding in 2013, or retreating into the shell of a side that lost on the same ground to Samoa just four months earlier.
They have proved, time and again, that they are good enough to beat these sides, only to somehow continue to fail to do so. This autumn provides a last chance to do that before the World Cup, and playing all of the big three in their back yard, a win against one of them, plus Fiji, is the absolute minimum. I think that’s what they’ll achieve. Wins: two. Losses: two.
By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43
7 replies on “Autumn Internationals 2014: what can we expect from Wales?”
Don’t quite understand how they’ve ‘proved, time and again, that they are good enough to beat these sides’
Their record against the big SH 3 since the millennium reads Played 45 – won 2, drew 1, lost 42
Their last win came in 2008.
If anything at all, they’ve proved time and time again that they are not good enough to beat these sides
I’m going with Jamie on this one. They have the power, pace and skill to beat Aus and posibly others based on last summer’s tour of SA. It comes down to the monkey thing. they seem to make poor decisions agianst the SH in the last 10 minutes. In a way they do not against NH sides.
To continue the animal theme, stop poking the bear.
p.s. Almost beginning to feel embarrassed/sorry for them. I would want Wales (one fot eh home nations) to beat the SH every time. As long as they keep losing to England 😉
Sigh … here we go again into these painful AIs. I have no idea if we can win one of these games. Pablito – Jamie means that both the quality of our players and the way we have stacked up titles, against other teams who do manage the odd wins against these SH teams, means we should be good enough to beat them. The Lions tour indicates we should be good enough. The close scores indicate we should be. But as Sam says – 9 losses on the trot isn’t bad luck, it’s that the other team are better. So logic be damned. Can’t argue with your point about hardly winning any either.
I think we’re beyond logical analysis – you couldn’t make up the ways we’ve found to lose against these sides in the last few years. Either we’ll be on top at the end of the 80 mins or we won’t. It’s that cliched and unfathomable to me.
My issue was with the idea of Wales having ‘proved’ that they are good enough to beat the SH. Until they DO beat the SH, they haven’t proved anything.
I SHOULD be able to persuade my wife to let me spend the next 4 Saturdays stuck to the sofa watching rugby and drinking beer, but I won’t have PROVED that I can until I emerge triumphant in December with a minor alcohol problem and an extra stone in weight.
Still, at least you shouldn’t have Priestland at fly-half this year…
Well it’s semantics really. A better turn of phrase may have been that Wales have proved they can live with these teams (bar NZ) until 79:59 apparently..
The crushingly depressing part of your earlier post is that W2 D1 is actually better than I thought it was, I thought it was W1 D1 – Sigh.. I wish I didn’t care about rugby..
I think Wales would have had more of a chance to beat SA than Oz – I think OZ’s unpredictability in attack troubles Wales much more than SA’s power play (also less of the so called ‘mental’ issue) and that second test in SA this year really showed what they are capable of. Shame it falls outside the test window and guessing a few key players won’t be available?
Big game from Webb and Biggar might just do it for you. Worry about North at centre though, think he is good there but you lose a world class wing then. Anyway good luck to Wales. Would love you to thrash OZ, even if just rock the boat before they play us.
Just do it this time!
If Wales beat either Aus or SA, the monkey will no more be off their back than when they beat Aus in 2008.
Same applies for England. We beat NZ 2 years ago, Aus last year. If we beat them this year, then all those close losses will start to look like England successfully closing the gap rather than failing and falling short.
IMO I think the NH teams are closing the gap, but the results have to start flowing as evidence of this. Now seems a good a time as any.