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The British upper classes of the 19th century took to spending their winters in Nice, the mild climate and magnificent vistas seen as perfect for rest and recuperation; the succour of the sunshine and shimmering seas of the Cote d’Azur just the ticket when escaping the harsh winters of home.
Warren Gatland’s Wales will hope the restorative powers of the city remain. Nice la Belle is a natural bridging point on their continental grand tour, with the under-pressure coach taking his young squad south ahead of a meeting of some magnitude with Italy.
If it was, broadly, with expectation that a 43-0 drubbing from France was received, it nonetheless served to illustrate the scale of the challenge facing Gatland and his men. The pasting in Paris was a first nilling since 2007, and a heaviest defeat on French soil. Two short years after giving their hosts a run for their money with four tries of their own, a pointless effort marked another low in this deep, prolonged depression that Wales just can’t seem to shake.
The winless run now extends to 13 games. Backed by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) in December after a promise of jam tomorrow, the obvious hope for his inexperienced players to come good in the future will not come to fruition unless greater growth is shown in the present. It would still be financially fraught to dispense with the head coach, but if they do not win in Rome, another wooden spoon surely beckons.
“For me, this game next week is the biggest in Welsh rugby for the last 15 or 20 years,” former fly half Dan Biggar said on ITV, his last game in international rugby the first in this losing streak. “I’m not saying that light-heartedly. It’s a huge, huge match.
“Everyone is saying about an agenda, in terms of the negativity, but it’s very difficult to be overly positive because of the defeats and the way Wales are playing at the minute.”
While batting away the suggestion of whether this was his most important fixture across nearly two decades in charge, Gatland admitted that the consequence of the encounter with Italy would not be lost on his charges. “It’s an important game for Wales. It’s not about where it ranks for me,” the head coach said. “Next week becomes pretty important for us. We can’t hide away from that.
“We need to get the monkey off our back.”
Wales seemed to feel that weight in Paris. It was a solid enough start, with some strong defensive sets allied to early joy in the aerial contests. But as France began to exert their power and panache, Wales wilted, going away from a strategy proving successful and starting to overplay.
Gatland pointed to the inexperience within his squad. “It was probably a little bit frustrating. We tried to go out with a positive attitude, and I thought we started well. But we put ourselves under pressure at times by overplaying. They were a little bit more experienced in a couple of areas. We just didn’t help ourselves with some turnovers.
“International rugby is tight, particularly when you are playing a quality side like France. I thought they put us under pressure. When we did go to the air, we got some reward ourselves, and we probably needed to use that opportunity a little bit more. That is some of the game management that some of the players will learn from.”
But this was not a particularly callow Welsh backline. Yes, Ben Thomas was playing his first Six Nations minutes at fly half in the absence of the snubbed Gareth Anscombe, but outside him he had a 92-cap Liam Williams, 59-cap Josh Adams, 42-cap Owen Watkin and 38-cap Nick Tompkins, with Tomos Williams another experienced operator at scrum half. These are not Test neophytes; Wales may have lost a great deal of talent over the last two years yet there is still plenty of talent and ticker there.
Watkin’s early injury did not help matters, admittedly, with Thomas shifting to inside centre and Dan Edwards thrown to the wolves on international debut. The fear is that Watkin, impressive for the Ospreys this season, has torn his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Aaron Wainwright, who lasted a matter of minutes, is also likely to miss the Italy clash with a head injury and a “nasty cut to his face”. Of further concern is a niggle that full-back Williams had to manage across the 80 minutes, seen most strikingly when France flanker Paul Boudehent burned by him in pursuit of a hack ahead.
An eight-day turnaround before their Roman conquest is welcome, then, and may give Gatland time to consider his options if Watkin is ruled out. Anscombe may come into his thinking if he wants a steadier head to steer the sheep, while the fly half’s Gloucester teammate Max Llewellyn was an equally perplexing omission from the initial party and would add carrying might and menace to the midfield.
But perhaps a radical shift in tone is required, too. Gatland talked after the match in praise of the effort his players showed in a game in which they were outscored seven tries to none. “You can’t question how hard they tried,” he insisted, the plaintive, almost pitiful acceptance of a heavy defeat. If this great competition is increasingly thriving on the genuine jeopardy in each and every contest as Italy rise, Wales’s descent to the doldrums is not at all welcome.
Certainly, it would be good to see Gatland and his squad come out swinging over the next eight days. There can be no doubt that a leader like Jac Morgan will inspire by deed, if not by word – the openside stood apart even from the other smattering of strong performers in Paris.
But it would be good to see Gatland and his squad come out swinging over the next eight days. Surely this team, this proud rugby nation, deserves more than a meek acceptance of mediocrity. Certain venerable Welsh rugby heads suggest that Gatland is the right man to lead them out of this crisis; it is time for the great Kiwi coach to prove them right.
