When Wayne Pivac succeeded Warren Gatland as Wales head coach and said his priority was to sharpen an attack whose main weapon was a bludgeon, few would have anticipated Dan Biggar turning into a latter‑day Carlos Spencer and becoming a master of invention.
Biggar was a personification of the Gatland era – a competitive, aggressive fly-half who developed into the leading kick-and-chase No 10 in Test rugby – but the arrival of Pivac after last year’s World Cup was not the culture shock it would have been for the 30-year-old who for the past two seasons has led Northampton’s attack under their enterprising coach, Chris Boyd.
Even so, it required a glance at the stadium’s big screen that it was Biggar who, receiving a pass slightly behind him five metres from Italy’s line and, with his back to Josh Adams, flicked the ball backwards through his legs to give the wing a run-in for the second of his three tries. Biggar’s slick move came 28 minutes into the 42-0 victory that got the champions’ campaign off to a five-point start.
Adams’s marker, Leonardo Sarto, was so convinced Biggar had posed no threat that he rushed infield and found himself stranded when the ball reached Adams – the top try scorer in international rugby in the past 12 months and the first Wales player to score a hat-trick in the championship in Cardiff since Maurice Richards ran in four against England 51 years ago.
“The boys gave me some stick,” Biggar said. “The ball was a bit behind me but I think I could have passed it normally. I just thought I would flick it and hope for the best. What Wayne wants with Wales is similar to Northampton, opening up the field as much as possible by playing off 10, but he made the point before we left the hotel that winning physical battles makes putting width on a game a lot easier and the front five made sure we were on the front foot.”
Wales’s five tries were half as many as they scored in the entire campaign a year ago when they won the grand slam. A case of a new vroom, perhaps, but Pivac was as much enthused by his players keeping their opponents scoreless as he was by the flourish they showed in attack. It would have been six tries but for an unkind bounce for Tomos Williams after he had charged down Tommaso Allan. George North had a try ruled out for a knock‑on in the build-up.
“What was a little disappointing was that we did not quite open up in the second half,” said Biggar, reflecting on Wales going 40 minutes between their second and third tries. “A few errors crept into our game, but to get five points and keep them to zero was pleasing. Byron Hayward [the defence coach] has big shoes to fill after Shaun Edwards, and it was a big pat on the back for him. We know we will be tested more in Dublin next weekend, but it was a good start.”
Wales’s third try was scored by the Saracens centre Nick Tompkins on his international debut. He had helped to set up Adams’s first when on as a head injury replacement for Johnny McNicholl, first winning a turnover penalty and then being involved in the move from the subsequent lineout. He came on permanently 12 minutes after the interval and restarted Wales’s engine with a 35-metre run to the line from a ruck, celebrating wildly.
“I had no control over the celebration, which was for my [Wrexham‑born] gran – the reason why I am here,” he said. “It was emotion, relief and anxiety coming together. It was good to get on there early, even though I was flying around and missing tackles. When I got back on to the bench I thought, now I knew what it was like, that I could do it. I was a nervous wreck in the morning, but I did not put my headphones in on the way in or when we arrived because I wanted to enjoy every aspect of it.”
Italy stretched their losing run in the tournament to 23 matches, but their caretaker head coach, Franco Smith, was not despairing in advance of the visit to Paris on Sunday. They were enterprising but they so lacked a focal point that it was hard to work out how they expected to win.
They were, in one sense, ideal first opponents for Pivac but Ireland in Dublin will be completely different, even if Andy Farrell’s side owed much in their win against Scotland to their opponents’ wastefulness. “We are under no illusions,” said Pivac, who does not expect the Lions full-back Liam Williams to be available. “It will be a real step up and a lot of hard work needs to be done because the performance against Italy certainly wasn’t perfect.”
