It was another brave and exciting defeat for Wales against
Southern Hemisphere opposition against South Africa but they should be able to
exact a comprehensive revenge against Argentina for and make amends for yet
another autumn defeat today.
Warren Gatland’s men are one of the world’s premier sides on
their day and have won the last 2 6 Nations titles, but have failed to arrest a
terrible record against southern hemisphere nations – having not won an Autumn
International since 2009 – but that fails to tell even a shred of the story and
there are a whole set of factors in their favour today.
Argentina’s long overdue addition to the 4 Nations has seen
them and a number of their players improve but they’ve not beaten a Tier one
nation since their win here a year ago and while they’ve posted some terrific
efforts – pushing South Africa as close as any side this year and going down by
just a point in Australia in their bid for a first success in the new
tournament – but they’ve also had to cope with the longer year, a case in point
being their slaughtering of a second string at the hands of England’s youth in
the summer, and Santiago Phelan’s departure looks to have had a bad effect on
the team based upon their limp loss to England, where for 40 minutes they were
torn apart by England in all facets of the game before being flattered by a
poor second half performance.
The scoreboard showed that Wales lost by 9 points to South
Africa but the pair were neck and neck in a pulsating encounter before an unfortunate
defensive error from Rhys Priestland and some incredible skills from Jacque Fourie
put the Springboks out of sight. The intensity that Wales showed at the
breakdown and contact centre that day was far more than the Pumas were able to
muster at Twickenham and while Wales have come out of that counter worse off in
injury terms – the loss of Adam Jones and Jonathan Davies especially key to
that plan – but the pack still contains the bruising duo of Sam Warburton and
Justin Tupiric (ask England how they feel about that pairing) along with Alun
Wyn Jones and Gethin Jenkins to boot.
Dan Biggar’s reinstatement at flyhalf is welcome and Cory
Allen deserves this first start after a fine season for Cardiff Blues, with
Liam and Scott Williams both likely to ensure an effective tactical kicking and
running setup, and while the mental blockade is a worry, Wales have done enough
to justify support against Argentina this weekend
Advice
1 pt Wales -10 (10/11 general)
No comments:
Post a Comment