This weekend, 23 Wales players will potentially be playing for Wayne Pivac’s job - assuming no decision has been taken on that front and his future as Welsh coach will be mulled over in an autumn series review.
It’s quite a responsibility for all of them to have.
Welsh rugby has been here before, of course. Rewind to August 2003 and this writer's landline rang at the old South Wales Evening Post offices in Swansea. “Steve Hansen will be sacked if Wales lose tomorrow,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
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The source was completely reliable, having passed on countless nuggets of information over several years, and the tip was on the money once again. “I know how close I came,” Hansen said years later. “WRU chief executive David Moffett had come to see me and told me if we didn’t beat Scotland I was going home. I didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t see the point putting them under pressure.”
That last bit was to Hansen's immense credit. But the players knew.
And Colin Charvis, particularly, delivered big time in that game against Scotland. Hansen went to the World Cup that autumn and Wales performed well, reaching the quarter-finals and giving eventual tournament winners England a hurry-up before bowing out.
“We got the win that saved his job,” Adam Jones later said of the game with Scotland in his autobiography, Bomb.
“Charv was on fire that day. At training he often couldn’t be bothered and sometimes looked as though he couldn’t even catch a ball. But he was a big-game player, and this match required just that. On one occasion, he was running at full tilt, scooped up a pass from around his ankles, and then deftly flicked the ball out of the back of his hand for a try-scoring pass.”
Who is going to be Pivac’s star man this weekend as the pressure piles on the coach?
Pivac has made six changes from the side that misfired completely against Georgia, with Leigh Halfpenny, Joe Hawkins, Rio Dyer, Gareth Anscombe, Alun Wyn Jones and Taulupe Faletau named in the starting line-up.
Hawkins comes in at inside centre for Owen Watkin, who picked up a bang against the eastern Europeans in Cardiff. The young Osprey will become the 31st new Wales cap of the Wayne Pivac era and the fifth this autumn as the Kiwi looks to assess the claims of any potential bolters for the World Cup.
Whether Pivac will actually be in charge for the global tournament perhaps now remains to be seen. But we’ll put that question on ice.
Hawkins has been seen as a senior international in the making throughout his age-grade career. At 6ft and 15st 5lb, the Wales U20s captain is a unit but he also has soft skills, with a nice passing game and the ability to put team-mates through gaps. A former fly-half, he can also kick a ball.
All pluses so far. What the 20-year-old doesn’t have is a lot of experience, with just six of his 21 appearances for the Ospreys coming as a starter. The learning curve for him, then, isn’t so much going to be sharp as Himalayan.
But he has a lot of know-how either side of him in Gareth Anscombe and George North and he isn’t short of confidence, which should stand him in good stead this weekend.
At the other end of the age spectrum is Alun Wyn Jones.
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Possibly, some were beginning to fret over him, with the last public sighting — possibly — being as far back as November 5, when the big man was sitting on the floor in a small corridor not far from the Wales dressing room after the defeat by New Zealand.
Since then, two Tests have passed without Jones being involved. There has also been a torrent of speculation about the 37-year-old’s future and whether or not he’ll last out at the top level through to the World Cup.
We are about to find out a bit more on that count. Mentally, the old warrior will be determined to respond to those who have been writing up his end as a Test player.
But he’ll want a big game, anyway, given Pivac’s perilous situation, because the thing is with Jones he is fiercely loyal to colleagues and is someone who has always put the interests of the team and those connected with it first. Yes, he’ll want to deposit the words of his critics down their throats, but his number one priority will be to make sure the side prospers.
Determination and attitude will not be a problem for him. But those who have been on his case will want to see whether his body can still cash the cheques his spirit and mind are writing for him.
Don’t back against it, though.
World rugby’s record cap holder isn’t the only one with considerable experience that Pivac has brought back. Faletau and Halfpenny will also help on that front.
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Between the three of them, Jones, Faletau and Halfpenny will bring 365 caps worth of hard-core international knowhow to the side when Lions Test outings are added to Wales appearances.
And Faletau has been in form.
Coming off the bench last weekend he piled up 11 tackles in 28 minutes and made 16 metres from three carries, showing himself to be the very definition of an impact sub. That after standing out against Argentina a week earlier and excelling in adversity against New Zealand. For Pivac, it’s hard to imagine there could be too many better players in the world coming into the side for the game with the Aussies than the 32-year-old No. 8.
Then there’s Halfpenny, returning to the Test fray 16 months after sustaining a career-threatening knee injury. With him and Anscombe looking after goalkicking matters, Wales should be able to punish Wallaby indiscipline.
But Pivac will also trust the Scarlet to spread confidence through the side by reminding us of his quality as a reader of play and defuser of opposition bombs. Wales failed on that count against Georgia and cannot afford a repeat performance against Australia.
The coach also needs Anscombe to stamp his authority on play from fly-half. Renewing his half-back partnership with Tomos Williams should help, with the pair familiar with each other’s play from the days when Anscombe teamed up with his old mate at Cardiff. In a game that could come down to small margins, every little is likely to help.
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A surprise is that Josh Adams is confined to the bench. Rio Dyer’s bright performances against New Zealand and Argentina deserved to be rewarded with a starting place, but the call must have been close between Adams and Alex Cuthbert, who wasn’t at his best against Georgia. By contrast, Adams made an encouraging return from injury against the eastern Europeans. Maybe he can offer us his own take on the impact sub business.
And maybe the 6ft 6in Cuthbert can prove his worth in the aerial battle that's so key in the modern game.
Nicky Smith’s puzzling exclusion from the action continues after his absence from the matchday squads for the games with Argentina and Georgia. The way things are shaping up, his on-pitch involvement in this campaign could amount to just 35 minutes against New Zealand. For a player who performed as well as any Welsh loosehead in the opening rounds of this season’s United Rugby Championship, that adds up to grounds for being more than a shade disappointed.
Still, it’s Pivac’s call as he fights to save his job. His starting line-up contains nine Ospreys, three Cardiff players, two Scarlets and one Dragon.
The coach will be hoping all concerned perform.
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