When a team takes a beating as comprehensive as the one Wales had in Dublin it is easy to be seduced by sage analysis, the kind that digs deeply into every peripheral issue suspected to have had an influence.
In three days of febrile reaction here, the hammering against Ireland has been laid at the door of everyone and everything.
The structure of WRU governance, the standard of the United Rugby Championship, the general malaise brought about by the regional game…. each have been forensically picked apart.
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Individuals at fault have ranged from former chief executive Roger Lewis to current chairman Rob Butcher, Paul Ringer (remember the famous Max Boyce song?) and the bloke who sells programmes on the gate at Pontypool Park.
Undoubtedly, the dysfunctional elements of the regions (take your pick of those) and whoever is responsible for the apathy that bedevils the Welsh domestic game carry a modicum of culpability for the thrashing by Ireland.
But not as much culpability as Wayne Pivac and his Wales management team, and their players.
A range of factors presented them with a daunting task on the opening day of the Six Nations – but none excused such a non-entity of a performance.
Pivac made the first mistake that contributed to it on January 18, the day he named his tournament squad.
In a scene-setting interview he chose to highlight the absence of more than 600 caps worth of experience and the disruptive influence of Covid on the game-readiness of a number of players.
Fair comment on either count, but Pivac sent out all the wrong signals in the process.
He gave his players what all players should never be given – an excuse for not being able to produce the goods.
And in concentrating on who wasn’t there the New Zealander also ran the risk of sapping the confidence of those who were.
Last Friday night George Skivington, head coach of resurgent Gloucester, was asked about the difficulties of preparing his team in the wake of the combined effects of international call-ups and injuries.
His answer was the polar opposite of Pivac's. He radiated positivity.
Skivington said he saw the situation as a brilliant opportunity, not just for in-coming players but also for him and everyone else in charge of preparation. Extracting the maximum out of whatever is at your disposal in trying circumstances, he stressed, was the very essence of good coaching.
There was scant evidence on Saturday to suggest much of that had gone on in the Wales camp, such were the hideous shortcomings in so many departments.
Wales lost the physical battle, they displayed completely inadequate levels of aggression and intent, there appeared a chronic lack of leadership in the face of adversity – Dan Biggar is far from the only one with this responsibility to shoulder – and as an attacking threat they were unbelievably toothless on the rare occasion opportunities arose.
Pivac tried to make the pre-match narrative about injuries, but Wales still had more caps between them than Ireland (487 compared to 468). They still had six British Lions in their starting XV.
Pivac is approaching a crossroads in his Wales reign. We’re about to find out how good he really is.
Does he belong in the highest echelon of world rugby coaching, where any coach of Wales in the modern era needs to be? Or is he being exposed as a knee-jerk appointment by a WRU administration who were hoodwinked into classifying the Scarlets 2017 PRO12 title win as the perfect qualification?
Pivac has won 10 Tests out of 23 and the concerns about his Wales team stretch back a whole lot further than last weekend.
In his first year there were just two victories in eight games, against Italy and Georgia.
Wales improved significantly throughout their 2021 Six Nations championship success, yet rode their luck in winning Irish and Scottish games that saw their opponents reduced to 14 men before benefiting from what even Welsh supporters recognised were some dubious refereeing calls in toppling England.
A home series defeat to Argentina followed. Yes, Wales were shorn of their Lions contingent last summer but were still poor on the whole.
Then last autumn, Pivac and several of his henchman tried to put an overly complimentary spin on performances at junctures of what was unquestionably a disappointing campaign.
Going into the final game against Australia, forwards coach Jonathan Humphreys said November had been “massively positive”. Coming on the back of a disjointed display against 14-man Fiji that yielded a deeply unconvincing win, the comment was derided by cynics.
A few days later Pivac added: “Individually there have been some very good performances. We are really pleased and the depth is building.”
If depth is building, why did Wales look like they had regressed a country mile against Ireland? Sure, Andy Farrell’s current group are formidable and on a real roll at present, but not to the extent we should expect arguably the most one-sided Ireland-Wales encounter in memory.
Yes, it was that bad. Wales didn’t get a sniff.
Without wishing to sound melodramatic, some of what was on display had echoes of the dark days of the Gareth Jenkins era, when not only did they not do many things well but it was difficult to ascertain what they were trying to do at all.
Right now, how does this Wales team play? What’s the pattern? What’s the Pivac brand?
We don’t carry a threat on the gain-line, we pose no questions beyond the ordinary at the breakdown, where our own ball is slow to emerge and where the Irish were able to largely recycle within three seconds.
Our attack is close to non-existent, and the innovation and potency of Ireland’s offensive strategy just brought that into sharper focus.
Our lineout is scratchy and unreliable. The defence is so-so, but nothing like as miserly and downright resolute as it was under the stewardship of Shaun Edwards.
And worst of all last Saturday? The craven body language and lack of intensity. How Ireland didn’t clock up 50-plus points is anyone’s guess.
The buck stops with Pivac.
Wales may be missing key personnel, the regions may apparently be in a permanent state of decay, the WRU hierarchy may have got any number of things wrong.
But the Wales camp during the Six Nations is a bubble. They’ve always prided themselves on shutting out the rest of the world, getting on with their work and, more often than not, punching above their weight in tournament rugby.
Pivac is without key players, but has enough proven talent at his disposal to be doing a whole lot better.
So let’s not over-think it.
Wales have simply been poor for some time. Two years’ worth of data suggests the title of 2021 may well have been an anomaly.
Other than that, the graph shows steady decline, with the Dublin debacle representing something of a catastrophic plunge.
In Wayne’s world that may be down to 600 missing caps.
In the real world it just ain’t good enough.
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