How does a top-tier international coach come back from a home defeat to Georgia?
With great difficulty, rugby scribes seem to agree after Wales’ 13-12 loss to the eastern Europeans.
Our rugby writer Ben James has already suggested the team is bouncing from one low to another and it's hard to see how Wayne Pivac takes the side forward from here. You can read Ben's article in full here
The setback for head coach Pivac and his team was one of the most humiliating defeats in the country’s proud history.
And no-one could argue the visitors didn’t deserve their triumph. They stayed in the game, gradually imposed themselves on Wales and ended by doing a demolition job on the Welsh scrum and taking the spoils.
We take a look at the UK media reaction.
Steffan Thomas, The Telegraph
This was undoubtedly one of the worst performances in Welsh rugby history and brought back memories of embarrassing defeats against the likes of Western Samoa and Canada in the early 1990s.
Pivac’s contract runs out at the conclusion of the World Cup but it would be a surprise if Welsh Rugby Union chief executive Steve Phillips is not looking to make a change given he has lost eight out of 11 Test matches this year. The answer for Wales is obvious: Scott Robertson.
The Crusaders coach is widely considered to be one of the best in the world and has recently been touted as Eddie Jones’ successor at England. While his preferred option would be coaching the All Blacks, Wales need to steal a march and offer Robertson the chance to lead them to the World Cup.
They look rudderless and devoid of motivation under Pivac, and desperately need a new coach who can galvanise a squad who do not know where to turn.
Georgia fought to the bitter end and the calls to include the Lelos in the Six Nations will grow even louder after what was the biggest result in their history. However, in reality this was a game Wales should have won comfortably given the ascendancy they held in the first-half. Wales were the architects of their own downfall at the Principality Stadium.
* Steff Thomas will shortly be joining Wales Online as a rugby writer.
The Sunday Times (Rob Cole)
The 63,585 at Principality Stadium were served up a horror show against the Georgians, ending in one of the worst results in decades. Having taken a few steps forward against the Pumas, this was 10 massive paces backwards in the build-up to next year’s World Cup — when the two teams will meet again in France.
It was fingers and thumbs from start to finish, a performance that lacked fluidity, had little or no composure and ended in a famous win for Georgia. It was an abject performance that is going to take some coming back from for Pivac and co. The guillotine is being sharpened as we speak.
Where do you put your money on the next meeting between these two at next year’s World Cup?
Wales Online (Delme Parfitt)
A penalty by replacement fly-half Luka Matkava in the 78th minute clinched a thoroughly deserved win for the minnows – which will lead to perfectly legitimate calls for Pivac to go less than a year out from the 2023 World Cup.
Pivac, who has already presided over a loss to Italy this year, saw his team huff and puff their way through a shambolic and unacceptable display that will rightly have appalled their fans, not to mention WRU bosses.
Pivac selected a strong home side on paper, but they were clueless yet again in attack and craven in the all-important second half arm-wrestle when they needed individuals to stand up and take responsibility.
PA/Rugby Pass
Wales could have absolutely no complaints. It was one of the greatest upsets in international rugby union history, and will inevitably pile pressure on Wales boss Wayne Pivac building towards next weekend’s autumn finale against Australia.
Georgia’s players celebrated wildly, and they held on to win, claiming the greatest victory in their rugby history, beating Wales for the first time and leaving their hosts crestfallen.
The Rugby Paper (Peter Jackson)
Georgia shook one of the great citadels of world rugby to its very foundations , plunging Wales into a crisis to raise questions over Wayne Pivac and his coaches.
Embarrassing defeats at the hands of Tier Two opposition may be something of a Welsh tradition dating back almost 40 years to their pitiful surrender in Bucharest. There may be only a degree or two in it but this was as bad as it could get.
The scenes at the end reflected wildly contrasting emotions. The tsunami which Georgia's pack generated to demolish Wales not once, not twice but THREE times in as many minutes near the end will send waves to every distant shore on the rugby planet.
In putting Wales out of their misery, the victors struck the mightiest blow yet for a sport banned in 1948 throughout the then USSR as too ‘bourgeois’ for the liking of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Read next:
WIN: Free tickets to watch Wales v Australia in the final autumn international
The full transcript of Wayne Pivac's tense press conference as job now on the line
