It is a measure of Ireland’s confidence that they have agreed to the roof of the Principality Stadium being shut for a match they have to win to maintain their ambition of seizing back the title they lost last year to England, their opponents in the final match of the Six Nations in Dublin next week.
Ireland should be upbeat after a season in which they ended New Zealand’s long winning run and defeated Australia, and since 1983 they have lost only three times in the championship in Cardiff with both Munster and Leinster winning the European Cup in the Welsh capital in that time. They stuttered on the opening weekend in Scotland but Jonathan Sexton is back at fly-half with his calm authority.
Wales are in the rare position this decade of being out of contention for the title with two rounds to go following second-half collapses against England and Scotland. When their interim head coach, Robert Howley, was asked why he had not changed the team that lost at Murrayfield for the first time since 2007, he said the side had not become bad overnight.
When it was pointed out to him that Wales had won four of their past 11 Tests, his reply was that the current management’s record in the Six Nations (since 2008) was 70%, but in the past two seasons they have won four championship matches out of eight with two of the successes coming against Italy. They have the appearance of faded grandeur, speckled with dust but haughtily defiant, as the cracks grow, that a makeover is not required.
Wales may be forsaking the overtly direct and confrontational style that won them the title in 2012 and 2013 and embracing the attacking zeitgeist but in a match they have to win to ensure they are in the top eight of the world rankings for the World Cup group draw in May, the future will be put on hold. Howley’s ambition of succeeding Warren Gatland as head coach in 2019 may not end with defeat but a first bottom-half finish since 2011 would leave him seriously wounded and without popular support, although the structural problems in Welsh rugby, the legacy of a regime that focused on the elite end of the game, are his curse not responsibility.
Howley’s selection policy has been conservative, understandably so given that he has in effect been auditioning for Gatland’s job, but at the point when he needs options to some experienced players who have been trading on past achievements, he is reluctant to resort to the untried in adversity. The fear of another 2015 World Cup, when Wales were pooled with England and Australia, is the driver, not the tournament itself. It may have been different but for the chastening defeat by Australia at the start of the autumn series, but Wales are losing ground as Ireland, who a year ago looked to be losing their way, march on.
It is the start of a big weekend for Gatland in his capacity as Lions head coach with England facing Scotland the following day. Few of his Wales players have enhanced their reputations this year but the battle of the back-rows and half-backs will be instructive. The breakdown is Wales’s area of strength rather than the set pieces but Ireland have an all-round capacity at forward, the most effective team in the tournament at disrupting opposition lineouts and are unusual in looking to use the scrum as a means of attack rather than an opportunity to win a penalty.
Ireland’s last visit to Cardiff to face Wales in the Six Nations, two years ago, was a match unsparing in its ferocity, a gruellingly physical contest in which Ireland dominated in terms of possession and territory but came unstuck against an unyielding defence. It is that raw defiance, the refusal to countenance defeat, that Howley is looking to replicate that raw defiance but Ireland left Cardiff that day cursing refereeing decisions, not least at the scrum, they felt cost them momentum.
“We were frustrated with the scrum decisions that day,” the Ireland head coach, Joe Schmidt, said. “It’s incredibly infuriating when teams that don’t tend to play off scrums get rewarded for the way they approach the scrum.” England’s Wayne Barnes was in charge then as he will be on Friday night and he will take even greater exception than John Lacey in Scotland in the last round to attempts by the Wales scrum-half Rhys Webb to referee the match.
Webb has been one of Wales’s few stand-out players this tournament but he needs to talk to his wasteful outside backs more than the referee. It is a symptom of how they have gone from being single-minded to distracted, a team trying to change its style while retaining its look. By not insisting that the roof be open, Schmidt is showing he is operating from a position of strength, leaving Wales in danger of eaves dropping.
