Jonathan 'Jiffy' Davies launched into an impassioned tirade over Wales' "woeful" attack and claimed it would be "justifiable" to sack head coach Wayne Pivac after losing to Italy.
Wales ended their Six Nations campaign with a whimper as they lost 22-21 to the Azzurri in the Welsh capital on Saturday, meaning they finished fifth in the final standings with just the solitary win to their name.
READ MORE: It's hard for Wayne Pivac to come back from this, but he shouldn't be the sole scapegoat
It has led to some calling for Pivac's head in the aftermath of the defeat and former Wales fly-half Davies believes the WRU would be within their rights to do it after what he described as an "absolutely dreadful" performance.
"If you lose to Italy, it's sackable," Davies said on BBC's Scrum V. "If they want to get rid of him, they can, it's justifiable to do it. The performance was absolutely dreadful. The Italians were the better team. Again, our attack was absolutely woeful. I've no idea what they're trying to do. Dummy-runners, they don't tip off - the only tip-off in the game was Faletau to Watkin and we scored. Forwards don't look capable of getting over the gain line, when you can't do that it's difficult to do anything.
"We have to look deeper than that. If we won yesterday. If Wyn Jones had scored that try or Josh Adams had made that tackle... we are papering over cracks again. It's far deeper than that. The under-20s lost today, the regions got smashed in South Africa and I don't think the best players are playing for Wales at the moment and there's no one coming through. And in the summer we go to South Africa."
He added: "Ultimately, Italy and France had the same tactic; kick the ball to Wales and let them attack us. Because they knew Wales' attack wouldn't break them down. So you've got to ask what Stephen Jones' ideas are. We don't counter-attack. Selection; I don't think we've got the back-row right, I don't think we've got the midfield right and all of a sudden we change the back three as well. There's no consistency. I can't understand."
Fellow Scrum V pundit and former Wales centre Tom Shanklin weighed in with his own thoughts, believing that there seems to be no short-term fix in sight and problems run far deeper than simply a loss to Italy.
"[The blame] has to lie with the coaches," Shanklin added. "Players have to take part of that as well. The game plan didn't work. What we are trying to do doesn't look cohesive. We are creating opportunities but we are just not executing them. I don't know what we are trying to do with our attack. If a team was going to slip up like this it was going to be Wales. I thought we were over that from '03 and '07, but we've done it again.
"Jiffy is right. It is a knock-on effect of regional rugby. For the last 10 years, Wales have been performing well and we've not worried too much about the regions. But now the regions are not working, international rugby is not working and something at the top has got to change. I don't see how we are going to get out of this in the short term. I don't think it's a short-term fix."
