Wales came mightily close to derailing France’s Grand Slam march, but a failure to convert pressure and territory into points ultimately cost them dear.
This fourth round clash was closer than anyone expected beforehand, both on the scoreboard and in terms of each team’s performance.
But a ninth minute try by flanker Anthony Jelonch ultimately proved the difference, with Wales relying on three Dan Biggar penalties.
Wayne Pivac’s men had their chances, and improved manifestly after an uncertain opening 20 minutes.
Yet despite giving Les Bleus their most anxious match so far, Wales’ inability to make it count where it matters most – the scoreboard – turned out to be the story of the latest Six Nations Friday night clash.
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French seriously rattled
They came to Cardiff with the tag of ‘best team in the world’ bestowed on them by more than a few respected critics.
Maybe they are, but this French team were seriously rattled at times by a Welsh outfit who had patently worked hard on a game-plan to counteract their opponents’ many strengths.
Wales got in French faces, kept them guessing tactically and forced Les Bleus into mistakes and discipline lapses.
Two of the kingpins of the French pack – No8 Greg Alldritt and second Cameron Woki – both experienced a night to forget, but there were uncharacteristic blunders all round from the visitors, especially when they got themselves into promising attacking positions.
France came to the Welsh capital having been tipped by many to win quite comfortably.
Not a bit of it. And for that Wales deserve enormous credit.
Battle of the kicks
Both sides clearly wanted to base at least some of their strategy around attaining field position by kicking the ball from hand.
Initially France had comfortably the better of the aerial ping-pong, purely because they were able to put more distance on the ball.
But they reckoned without Dan Biggar. On at least two occasions in the first half Biggar launched incredible spiral kicks from deep that gained his team prodigious yardage.
This was most notable four minutes from the interval when, from another Biggar beauty, Wales attacked from a close range lineout and won the penalty that reduced the deficit to 10-9 going in at half-time.
Welsh lineout homework
How many times has the lineout been a source of frustration and recrimination for Wales?
Not this time because not only were they solid on their own ball, the way they disrupted France at the set-piece had a huge bearing on the opening 40 minutes especially.
Wayne Pivac and his coaching team clearly identified French second row Cameron Woki as the go-to man and did a superb job of disrupting him and the supply line of ball in his direction, Will Rowlands especially.
France were, to coin a Gallic phrase, non-plussed. What had been a safe source of ball for them throughout the tournament suddenly seemed to have gone awry.
Wales mixing it up in attack
So well-drilled is any team coached in defence by Shaun Edwards that Wales appeared to have realised that running predictable lines and angles against the French would get them nowhere.
They mixed it up well in attack though, keeping France pinned in their 22 whenever they could and also keeping them guessing.
In the 22nd minute a move off the training ground saw scrum-half Kieran Hardy, on for the concussed Tomas Williams, sent a looping up and under towards the Cardiff sky from a sumptuous attacking position right in front of the French posts.
It very nearly yielded a try for Liam Williams who only just missed the catch, and while there was no touchdown it was a move that looked very much worth a go. It was innovation at the very least – and we’ve seen precious little of that from Wales in the last year.
Other attacking moments saw Wales make the French defence turn with either clever grubber kicks or well-chosen and executed kicks to touch.
It meant France couldn’t settle into their usual defensive routines.
Nagging mistakes from Wales
As well as Wales did to turn the tide in a first half that saw France make such an impressive start, there were nagging mistakes from the hosts which stymied attempts to build pressure.
Wales conceded free-kicks at a 22nd minute close range scrum, and moments after a Cuthbert break five minutes later, Hardy knocked on at the base of a counter-attacking ruck on the half-hour, lock Adam Beard was turned over by arch-stealer Julien Marchand moments later and Cuthbert was isolated and penalised while being robbed of the ball in an attack early in the second half.
These incidents let the French off the hook and all came from errors that you felt could have been fairly easily avoided.
Plenty of pressure, not enough points
While Wales did many good things, the problem of simply winning the collisions and getting over the gain-line remained.
When they managed to go through the phases at the right end of the pitch they found genuine attacking go-forward hard to come by.
More often than not this was a physical shortcoming, with blue jerseys to easily able to knock red ones back.
A prime example was the opening 15 minutes of the second half. Wales had the lion’s share of territory and pressure, but it was the French who, in that period, managed to work the scoreboard with three more points from Jaminet.
Then in the 63rd minute centre Jonathan Davies dropped an inside pass from Taulupe Faletau off a Biggar cross-kick that, if caught, would probably have produced a brilliant try.
We know Wales aren’t going to muster intricate and razor-sharp back-line movements with ball in hand, but without a bullish gain-line presence they were reliant on those aforementioned kicks which, while problematic for the French, were always a gamble.
Too often Wales just ran out of ideas looking for that elusive corridor that might take them behind the French defence.
Faletau phenomenal
If you were wondering whether Taulupe Faletau’s performance against England after nigh on seven months out injured was a freak occurrence, you had your answer fairly sharpish here.
The Cardiff-bound No8 was simply phenomenal, particularly in the opening half when every time he received the ball he put breathtaking pace on the game.
One follow-up tackle on French full-back Melvyn Jaminet in the 16th minute, after Alex Cuthbert had made a break, didn’t just showcase unbelievable ground-speed for a forward and yield a penalty, it also galvanised his team mates to produce a second quarter that was vastly improved on the first.
Talk about leading by example.
