If England’s fall from grace since the heights they reached in 2019 is perplexing, Wales seem to have plunged at least as far in the same period. Their grand slam that year and agonising 19-16 defeat to the Springboks in a World Cup semi-final, courtesy of a Handré Pollard penalty five minutes from time, might as well have happened to a different team in a different universe.
Since then, they have (like England) won a Six Nations title, two years ago, but they have finished fifth in the other three championships, including the last two. This year has been particularly galling. The sacking of Wayne Pivac at the end of 2022 paved the way for Warren Gatland’s return, as if Wales believed success was sure to follow their greatest maestro.
Alas there have been player strikes since, a scouring of the regions’ finances, that fifth-place finish (and quite lucky to manage even that), some weirdly timed retirements and a send-off defeat by the Springboks in August that was by rather more than three points. They have sunk to 10th in the world rankings.
That puts them third highest in their World Cup group, which was hardly a pool of death even when Wales were good. Fiji may have shaken up the rankings and World Cup predictions, courtesy of their win over England at Twickenham, but they were already ranked above Wales before that historic victory.
That said, Pool C is the tightest when all the teams’ rankings are considered. Fiji, Australia, Wales and Georgia sit in seventh, ninth, 10th and 11th respectively, with Portugal’s 16th making them the highest ranked fifth team in any of the pools. Portugal swap in for Uruguay, but otherwise these are the same teams that made up Pool D at the last World Cup.
Wales won that group. Such an outcome is not out of the question again, but only the most optimistic Welsh folk would be confident of it. Forget the Fijian threat, it will not be lost on Wales that they were beaten at home by Georgia in the autumn.
Connoisseurs may have been tipping Fiji for a while to win in their fixture against Wales in Bordeaux on the opening weekend, but that result against England now means the whole world will be watching. Not that Wales, surely, will have been taking much for granted.
Nantes in 2007, when Fiji prevailed against them in one of the great World Cup matches, casts a sufficient shadow to register even 16 years on. And now Fiji have a fully professional team based in the islands, the Fijian Drua of Super Rugby, upon which to graft the usual phalanx of dazzling athletes playing abroad. No wonder they beat England.
Difficult to believe, after the era of Sam Warburton and Alun Wyn Jones, but Wales will be led into the fray by two young players few will have heard of, Gatland embracing the concept of the co-captain.
Jac Morgan, the barrelling back-row forward, is the more experienced of the two, in so far as he has 11 caps at the age of 23. Dewi Lake, his Ospreys teammate, is 24 and has turned out nine times for Wales at hooker. Together they replace as skipper Ken Owens, the veteran hooker, who left Wales’s camp in July with a back injury. His loss, together with the rather sudden retirements of Jones and Justin Tipuric within hours of each other in May, deprives Wales of something north of 350 caps.
There are grounds for optimism, though. Bettering the 2019 campaign, which would mean a run to the final, is all but inconceivable, but Wales find themselves in the soft half of the most lopsided draw in World Cup history, so another semi-final is just about within the bounds of the imaginable.
There is life after AWJ et al. It’s just that Wales have for so long relied on their golden generation that any fresh talent looks all the greener when thrown in without them. Gatland is sufficiently excited about his young co-captains to render them thus. Whether he will start them both in any given match remains to be seen, but they are far from alone as youngsters of huge promise.
Some might have expected Dafydd Jenkins, all 20 years and seven caps of him, to be flung the captain’s armband, if it were destined for the next generation, but the young lock is tipped to fill Jones’s mantle sooner than later. Then there are Christ Tshiunza, Rio Dyer and Mason Grady, to name just a few more kids bristling with talent.
Throw in the remaining veterans – Dan Biggar, Taulupe Faletau, Liam Williams, George North, Leigh Halfpenny – and it is possible, if you look sideways in a certain light, to wonder why all the gloom. But there’s no doubt the gloom is a thing. If Wales are to enjoy this World Cup, they will need to raise themselves above it.
