Retirements, career moves and injuries take predictable toll on Wales

By rights, Wales should be arriving in Dublin later this week for their pivotal round three game against Ireland in a reasonably settled and advanced state of rebuild halfway through their second Six Nations campaign in Warren Gatland’s second coming. But no less than Steve Borthwick’s England, only much more so, having reset Wales for the World Cup, Gatland has swiftly had to begin another rebuild.

In large part, this has been forced upon him. After the rollercoaster ride under Wayne Pivac — 2021 Six Nations champions followed by nine defeats in 12 Tests in 2022, including Italy and Georgia at home, for a return of just 13 wins and one draw in 34 games under his watch — to begin with, the reset for the World Cup under the rehired Gatland went reasonably well.

For sure, Wales benefited from being in the weaker half of the draw, but in time-honoured fashion, Gatland made them fitter and focused with an identity and a settled side, constructed around an experienced core. Beating Fiji 32-26 in a Bordeaux thriller was no mean achievement and even allowing for how the Wallabies never found an identity, or much else for that matter, under Eddie Jones, that 40-6 pool win in Lyon was stunning.

Admittedly, Wales failed to press home their first-half supremacy against Argentina in the quarter-finals and ultimately faded disappointingly in a 29-17 defeat, a result which was put in perspective by a poor Pumas side losing 44-6 in the semi-finals against New Zealand.

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Alun Wyn Jones and Justin Tipuric having retired before the tournament, Dan Biggar and Leigh Halfpenny followed suit after the World Cup, while Liam Williams moved to play club rugby in Japan.

Wales were also hit by a wave of injuries. Backrow Jac Morgan, co-captain at the World Cup when he started all bar the final pool game against Georgia, will miss the rest of the season due to a knee injury. Gatland’s initial captain, Ken Owens, is out indefinitely with a back injury. Ditto another Gatland favourite and Welsh stalwart, number eight Taulupe Faletau, who was an ever-present starter in last season’s Six Nations and the pool stages of the World Cup until sidelined for the quarter-final by an arm injury. He hasn’t been seen since. The same is true for lock/flanker Christ Tshiunza (foot), flanker Taine Plumtree (shoulder), flanker Josh Macleod (knee), hooker Dewi Lake (hamstring), outhalf Callum Sheedy (knee), Alex Cuthbert (foot and calf) who are all missing this championship too.

Gareth Anscombe, Jack Ball and Ross Moriarty are all in Japan, while another backrower, James Botham, suffered a knee injury in Wales’ opener against Scotland.

The net effect is that only 18 of Wales’ 33-player World Cup squad were retained in their Six Nations panel of 34, which has an average age of just 25, five uncapped players, and another eight who had previously never played in the championship before.

They also have a new captain in the shape of 21-year-old Exeter secondrow Dafydd Jenkins, who became the youngest player to captain Wales since 1968 during this Six Nations, and the second youngest ever after the great Gareth Edwards.

Like Liam Williams, centre Joe Hawkins and prop Tomos Francis effectively disqualified themselves from representing Wales by moving to Exeter and Provence respectively.

Hence, of the Welsh side which Ireland faced in the first game of Gatland’s second coming in last season’s first-round meeting in Cardiff, only six starters (Josh Adams, George North, Rio Dyer, Tomos Williams, Gareth Thomas and Adam Beard) along with two replacements that day (Jenkins and Tommy Reffell) pitched up in Twickenham last week.

But topping all of that, in somehow classically Welsh fashion, only hours before Gatland unveiled his Six Nations squad, Louis Rees-Zammit announced his decision to pursue a career in American football. It’s not that Wales could have built a team around a winger, but the 22-year-old scored five tries at the World Cup, so taking his tally to 14 in 31 Tests, as well touring with the British and Irish Lions in 2021. His out-and-out pace and finishing gave Wales its stardust.

The net effect of a change in head coach, who cast his net wide in finalising a World Cup squad, followed by retirements, career choices and injuries is that Wales have used a staggering 64 players in the 15 Tests since Gatland’s return. This includes 14 debutants, not to mention 11 props and six hookers, and with the best will in the world, Wales simply don’t have 64 international quality players.

In Gatland’s previous 12-year stint, Wales made a virtue out of adding up to more than the sum of their regional parts as low key URC performers became supermen. But poorly cultivated pathways via the regions, and investment in overseas players rather than quality coaching, have contributed to the chickens coming home to roost, and a golden generation having retired or moved on in quick succession, this looks an altogether bigger task for Gatland and his staff.

Wales will arrive in Dublin having lost nine of their last 10 matches in the Six Nations and having lost each of their opening two matches in a campaign for the second consecutive year. Previously the last time they’d failed to win at least one game across the first two rounds was in 2007, the year before Gatland first took over.

And yet there has been some encouragement to be drawn from the side’s opening two performances, if not the first half of their opener against Scotland, after which they trailed 20-0, before soon falling 27-0 behind early in the second period.

But Welsh sides under Gatland have had a habit of mounting furious fightbacks, especially in the Principality Stadium, and in classic fashion they responded with a comeback which fell just short in a 27-26 defeat which must have left home team and fans alike drained, proud and full of regrets, with two bonus points scant consolation.

Gatland said Wales’ first-half performance was one of the worst halves of rugby by one of his sides in his 30-year coaching career.

“I think I have got to apologise for the first half,” Gatland told S4C. “It’s probably one of the worst 40-minute performances in my whole rugby career as a coach. We were terrible, shocking. The discipline was poor, and we didn’t nail some things. The players should be disappointed with the first half but proud for the second half, they didn’t throw the towel in and could have won the game. To do what we did, be 27-0 down, other teams might have shown less character and start thinking about next week, even throw in the towel. We didn’t do that. They kept fighting and put themselves in a position to win. That showed real character”

Gatland made seven changes to his starting XV for last week’s game in Twickenham, promoting five of the replacements from the previous week, as well as restoring the fit-again loosehead Thomas and North. Having overtaken Shane Williams’ Welsh record of 22 tries in the Six Nations last season, North is now only three short of Brian O’Driscoll’s tournament high of 26 tries (in 65 matches).

Considering England were at Twickenham (where Wales had lost on their previous seven visits), were considerably more experienced and had utterly outperformed the Welsh regions in Europe this season, for Gatland’s team to take the game to England as they did, and lead 14-5 at the break, merits some credit.

Reffell, aka “Tommy Turnover” at his club side Leicester, has added potent carrying to his work at the breakdown. The 22-year-old Cardiff blindside and former Welsh under-20s captain, Alex Mann, hadn’t played at senior level before this season but is the URC’s leading tackler and has now scored in each of his first two Tests.

At Twickenham, nothing seemed to faze Cameron Winnett, who had only played three URC games before this season, and as Sam Warburton has noted, the 21-year-old fullback seems to possess that priceless quality on the ball, namely time.

Their lineout maul earned a penalty try and after Reffell’s break and link with Tomos Williams led to Mann’s try, Winnett’s break might have led to more had Adams looked to link or chip infield around the hour mark.

But the two frontrows having been replaced — Corey Domachowski (seven caps) and the debutant Archie Griffin coming up against Ellis Genge and Dan Cole (166 caps between them) — the Welsh scrum buckled, as did their lineout and England had increasing reward in the air.

Griffin’s knee injury has ruled him out of the rest of the championship and added to Welsh woes, but it’s likely to mean the more experienced Dillon Lewis being restored to the match-day squad, while Sam Costelow should be back in the mix too.

The Scarlets outhalf had missed the trip to Twickenham with a neural neck injury suffered in the first half of Wales’ defeat to Scotland, with club team-mate Ioan Lloyd deputising for the 23-year-old.

After the defeat in Twickenham, Gatland said: “I just said to them that I think they’re going to be a bloody good team going forward. Today’s part of that process, in terms of learning from that and some game management. I’m really proud of the effort … My message for the Welsh public is to have a bit of patience.

“We’ve got a group of youngsters and our role as coaches is to make them better and learn from those experiences. We came here without any fear and a lot of confidence we could win the game. Unfortunately, we fell a little short. The fact we’re playing a quality side in Ireland next up, it will be a level up.”

So, this is what is pitching up in Dublin. A callow side, built from insecure foundations by a wily head coach who has done this before, on the outset of a journey. The prevailing view in Wales is that this side has shown more promise than expected, albeit there is frustration over a brace of defeats which could have been wins, and fear of the Irish team they’re about to encounter in the Aviva Stadium next Saturday.

Lambs to the slaughter, in some eyes, or alternatively a promising young side who can swing freely from the hip.