Trying Times Indeed

It reminds me of one of those old westerns where despite any number of twists and turns along the way the man in the white hat (or in this case the gold shirt) always wins through in the end. In this episode Wales, despite scoring four tries and being in the lead with ten minutes to go, still contrived to lose to those pesky Aussies. You might think that just once the guys in the black hats (or in this case the red shirts) might just have their day but it just isn’t in the script.

The latest in the series of tests between Wales and Australia was, of course, a breathless and exciting encounter as virtually all of the others have been. For the Aussies and the neutrals it is great entertainment, for the Welsh it is heartbreak as we shake our heads in disbelief. So close and yet so far.

So why did Australia win? They were well organised and never panicked, they looked after the ball and managed the game well in possession and they capitalised on the Welsh mistakes.

So why did Wales lose? Despite scoring four tries, they lost possession too often with too many loose passes and infringements at the breakdown.

Australia have played together a lot recently and it showed. The change of management, if anything, has brought them closer together and at times they were pretty impressive. They certainly have a lot of strong ball carriers that the Welsh struggled to cope with at times. Wales, on the other hand, looked disjointed  and really didn’t need their first match of the season to be against one of the Southern Hemisphere big hitters. There were some good individual performances and they will surely improve as the Autumn Series progresses as long as they don’t lose too many players through injuries. They will certainly need to with the All Blacks and the Springboks just around the corner.

Pride of place for the six nations this weekend must go to Ireland for their convincing win over South Africa. England apparently ran the All Blacks close and there were wins for Scotland, France and Italy against Argentina, Fiji and Samoa respectively. It’s a lot of rugby for one day - still it’s keeping a small army of ex-players busy.

Hard luck Wales, the loss certainly wasn’t due to lack of effort.

The good news is that it’s now only four weeks before Pooler’s next league match!