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Another game, another 50 points conceded at home. The big ‘five-O’ has now been passed in 5 of the last 6 games in Cardiff, always by the visiting team. For all the banter about promotion/relegation in the Six Nations, Wales fans would probably bite your hand off for a game against Romania right about now.
Carre (18'), Grady (77')
Tries
Gailleton (1'), Bielle-Biarrey (10'), Brau-Boirie (14'), Jalibert (38'), Marchand (43'), Attissogbe (48', 57'), Ollivon (60')
Edwards (19')
Conversions
Ramos (2', 15', 39', 44', 49', 58', 61')
Another game, another 50 points conceded at home. The big ‘five-O’ has now been passed in 5 of the last 6 games in Cardiff, always by the visiting team. For all the banter about promotion/relegation in the Six Nations, Wales fans would probably bite your hand off for a game against Romania right about now.
Were there any signs of progress? Well, it was better than last week, but that is such a low bar it’s not even worth talking about. If we sift through the wreckage of another defeat we can find a few positives, but the Alarm bells are ringing just as loud as ever…
It would be disingenuous to claim nothing went right for Wales. The scrum and lineout both operated at 100% for the first time in years, with the former even winning back to back penalties in the 2nd half. That’s probably more worrying for France than it is positive for Wales, but it’s good to see nonetheless. They conceded a very reasonable 9 penalties and prop Rhys Carre showed excellent physicality throughout.
The bench all made good impacts, particularly the much maligned Taine Plumtree who brought his own brand of chaos to proceedings (in a good way). A special mention too for Jarrod Evans, whose introduction had an almost light-switch like effect on Wales’ backline. He varied his play well and gave direction to Wales’ attack - he should be strongly considered to start against Scotland.
Over Steve Tandy’s first 5 games in charge of Wales there have been precious few examples of a plan being in place, but we did see one gem against France. 3 times in the first half, Dan Edward kicked a midfield bomb off a line-out. Each time these were chased by Wales’ 3 tallest backs: Eddie James, Ellis Mee and Louis Rees-Zammit. Each of these bombs was reclaimed. This showed, perhaps for the first time, that Wales had identified a weakness in an opposition’s system, come up with a tactic to exploit it, and executed it successfully.
Speaking of him, Ellis Mee once again won praise from neutrals in both attack and defence. He still has a few rough edges to his game but his rugby IQ is excellent and he is deceptively quick. He was far more involved against France than he was against England, a trend supporters will be hoping continues.
Perhaps the most talked about Welsh player from this match is outside centre Eddie James. It is often said that 13 is the hardest position to defend in rugby and, on his 6th ever professional start there, James now knows that better than anybody. In the first half, France repeatedly used looping runs to get their fastest players attacking his outside shoulder. The linebreaks duly came as James found himself on the backfoot. Clearly, positioning is something he still needs to master.
His tackling itself is not an issue, with the official stats saying he made 8 out of 9 including 2 dominant hits - no Welshman made more. Some have tried to blame him for Wales’ goal-line defence being so ludicrously narrow, but it seems a stretch to suggest he alone should have the awareness to tell his teammates to spread out a bit more.
On the attacking side, though, the positives are plain to see. After being starved of the ball for most of the game, James was finally unleashed in the 2nd half - as was most of the backline. He popped up on the wing 3 times in one attack, using his physicality to run over a defender him each time. The attack would have led to a try were it not for a French knee knocking the ball out of Josh Adams’ hands on the line. Later, he popped up on the other wing, again earning a dominant carry before frustratingly becoming isolated from his teammates and conceding a turnover. Finally, in the 78th minute, he was used as a crash-ball off a line out. The official stats say he ended with 64 metres from 13 carries - an excellent return in anyone’s books.
There are still plenty calling for him to be moved to inside centre, but the fact is that ‘EJ13’ is a project that both Wales and his club team the Scarlets appear committed to. Therefore, we should probably all get used to it - even if it is likely that he would currently be more effective in his natural position of 12.
We spoke earlier about how Wales executed 3 effective midfield bombs - they were good. Unfortunately, the rest of the kicking game was highly problematic. No fewer than 7 of Wales’ kicks led directly to France line breaks and several of those were converted into tries.
The problem was not necessarily the kicks themselves, or even the primary chaser, but more the lack of detail around the chase. Most teams chase kicks in 2 or 3s - usually a tall player to challenge in the air and the others to collect the ‘crumbs’ (most contestable kicks are batted backwards, not caught) or service the ensuing ruck. Against France, Wales mostly sent either Ellis Mee or Josh Adams chasing kicks on their own. Why a test level team was lacking this fundamental detail is concerning and it was badly exposed.
You cannot expect to win every contestable kick and, when you are playing France, any lost contestable ball is now in the hands of either Thomas Ramos, Matthieu Jalibert, Louise Bielle-Biarrey or Theor Attissogbe. AKA: 4 of the most dangerous players in Europe. With just a solo chaser, these players had time to field the ball and spark counter attacks to devastating effect. Just as Wales gave George Ford the ball last week, they gave France’s best players the ball this week; France’s top carriers in this game were Ramos, Jalibert, Bielle-Biarrey and Attissogbe.
After half time it appeared the Welsh coaches had seen the problem and tried to change things up; Wales kicked all 3 of their first kicks long and Tomos Williams did not kick another contestable box kick until the 66th minute. Unfortunately, Dan Edwards tried to hang 2 more contestable kicks in the first 8 minutes of the second half, neither of which had a chase properly in place before he did so. One went too long and allowed France to break, one led directly to a France try.
The other notable thing about Wales’ contestable kicks were that almost all of them were from deep inside their own half, even the 3 well executed bombs. In fact, for 60 minutes, an alarming amount of Wales’ possession was in their own half. The stats say that despite Wales having 51% of the ball they had just 41% of territory, showing they were wasting energy in the wrong areas of the pitch.
It’s not just where the attacks are but also their lack of creativity; Wales managed to be tackled 207 times in this game (15 of which were dominant) despite only carrying the ball 157 times, indicating they were frequently double tackled. Opta posted in the week that Wales were drawing 2 defenders with 72% of their carries, which rather than creating space now appears to show just how predictable their carries are.
The lack of overall physicality remains a problem, too: an average of less than 2 post contact metres per carry is a poor return and 122 total rucks his a very high figure in the modern game - contrast just 84 for France plus a scintillating 25 offloads too.
When territory is managed this badly we do unfortunately need to look to the fly-half. Dan Edwards is an exciting young player who Steve Tandy has backed to the hilt (he has started in all 6 games since Tandy took over) but, like so many before him, it does seem the Wales number 10 jersey is weighing him down. Even ignoring his defensive frailties (he is not the only one) he is letting too much of the game pass him by.
This was typified by a bizarre Wales attack with the clock deep into the red of the opening half. Starting on the half way line, the attack lasted 1 minute and 34 seconds, during which Edwards did not touch the ball a single time. The final stats showed him as having the 12th most passes of any player on the pitch, surpassed even by his own replacement Jarrod Evans who was on the field for half as many minutes.
At least Edwards can still claim to be an inexperienced player honing his craft - an excuse that cannot be extended to several of his more senior teammates. The question of who Wales’ senior players even are is thorny one: Is Louis Rees-Zammit, who has 37 caps and has been to World Cups and Lions tours but is still only 25 and missed 2 seasons to try his hand at NFL? Is Tomas Francis, who has 79 caps but has spent the last 2 seasons away from test rugby playing in the French 2nd division?
Aaron Wainwright continues to put in excellent showings, Dewi Lake put a bad day in Twickenham behind him, Daf Jenkins remains his side’s busiest player and Josh Adams continues to refuse to take losses lying down. However, there were 2 other senior players who did not deliver for Wales against France.
Tomos Williams is, in the absence of Jac Morgan, Wales’ best player. He is also in the unfortunate position of being the only ‘adult’ in a backline of mostly test match juveniles. With Dan Edwards still developing, much of the game management falls on his shoulders. In this game, he did not manage the game well and is a stakeholder in both the kick strategy failure and the territory management failure. He will keep his place because he is still Wales’ best 9, but outings like this must not become a regular thing.
Adam Beard, on the other hand, will be very lucky if he keeps his place. Having shown he is not an effective ball carrier and that Wales’ set piece success is not, as we were told, contingent on his presence (he took one line out catch in this game), Beard produced a career worst performance on Sunday. It was so bad that it had BBC pundits openly laughing at him live on air. His comical dropped ball that gifted France a try (it wasn’t a kick, a kick would imply his foot actually touched it) was one of a slew of bad moments in this game that included missed tackles, ineffective clean-outs and fumbled catches.
One outlet gave him 2/10 in their player ratings. Were he a young player with less than 20 caps, Beard would be spared this heavy criticism. The fact is, though, he is a 30 year old 2nd row with well over 200 professional matches under his belt. He has been touted as a leader in this team and if that is the case then Wales cannot afford for him to put on showings like this. He needs to have a long look in the mirror and ask himself what exactly he is offering on the pitch.
6 games in and we are still waiting for Steve Tandy’s Wales to show any kind of defensive resolve. Players as talented as France’s will score incredible tries against anyone but Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s try and Theo Attissogbe’s 2nd try were as simple as they come. Both players had no one within 10 metres of them as the fielded Jalibert’s kick passes. Wales’ defensive narrowness was highlighted by multiple pundits after the England game but there was no evidence any steps were taken to rectify the situation ahead of the France game.
As the defeats pile up, so do the damning statistics: an average of 50 points per game conceded for Tandy is not the dream fans were sold when he was appointed. News broke before the game that Wales were to appoint a permanent defence coach before the July tests, but serious questions have to be asked of Dave Reddin and the WRU as to why it will have taken 10 games for such a vital role to be filled. Perhaps they assumed Tandy, with the reputation he had, would manage defence himself? If so, it does unfortunately call into question the whole decision making process of appointing him in the first place.
