Saturday in Dublin wasn’t a day when it was easy for any Wales player to be good.
But somehow Taine Basham confounded the odds.
He wasn't just good. He was exceptional.
His effort at the Aviva Stadium at least provided something for head coach Wayne Pivac to cling onto after a grim 80 minutes that had seen his Wales team comprehensively outplayed.
Ireland had too much pace and power in everything they did. They were intelligent and clever, targeting Welsh weaknesses. They have advanced their game dramatically and had a depth and quality the depleted visitors couldn’t live with.
But Wales’ No. 7 refused to go quietly.
The script may have been going completely wrong for his team, but the 22-year-old Basham charged at Irish defenders who sometimes needed to team up to stop him. The hosts had a brick-wall defence, but Basham kept running into it, fighting for that extra metre on the gainline, occasionally using footwork just to mix it up for those who were waiting for him.
Updated statistics showed he made a game-high 22 tackles without missing a single one.
And he also made made 15 ball carries for 34 metres.
Ireland had complete control up front, but only two of their forwards made more ground than the tough openside from Gwent — and then Lions pair Tadhg Beirne and Jack Conan bettered Basham by only a metre each.
Oh, and when an Irish front-five forward didn’t exactly welcome Dewi Lake onto the field, the great, great grandson of former European boxing champion Johnny Basham rapidly appeared on the scene.
Just in case.
All in all, it was some display, the latest in a series of stellar performances on the Test stage from Basham.
The certainty is that without him, Wales’ plight would have been more desperate than it turned out to be.
The assumption is, too, that Basham would play the same way if he were turning out for his old club Talywain against their rivals Garndiffaith.
It involves operating at 100 percent.
There doesn’t appear any great science involved, no over-thinking anything. He is simply involved for minute one to minute 80. Into everything, shying away from nothing.
Reminded that he had been Wales’ top tackler against Ireland, made more ball carries than anyone else in the team and made more metres than any other Welsh forward, he replied: "That is what is expected of me from my team-mates and myself.
“Chucking my body about is what I have to do for the team, so I can be happy with that.”
Someone asked how his body felt after a physical encounter that had seen Wales attempt more than 200 tackles. "Yeah, good,” came the reply. “Ireland brought a physical edge to them, and in my opinion we didn't match that in the first 10 minutes of the game, but we grew into the game with our physicality.
"For me, it is all about mindset, confidence in what we can do in defence and attack in terms of running onto the ball in motion — coming off the line and hitting someone hard. It is all about mindset for me. There will be no doubt that we will bring that next week against Scotland.
"We will look back and realise that physically we didn't turn up against Ireland. We have to turn up next week, especially in front of a home crowd.
"There is definitely going to be an edge. The boys are going to be disappointed about today's result and the way we performed, especially in the first 10 minutes.”
Despite the 29-7 scoreline, the scorer of the lone Welsh try on the day detected some positives. “The second 20 minutes of the first half when we took the ball in motion, you could see we were breaking them down. Next week, it's more of that, getting off the line in defence and just being really physical.”
What you see is what you get.
Rivals are respected rather than put on pedestals.
The youngster may come up with the occasional Hollywood moment on the pitch but he is unashamedly down to earth off it and he is also passionate about playing for his country.
"Every time you get an opportunity in this shirt, just play your own game and put your own stamp on it," he added.
So far, that stamp is clear for all to see.
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