It could have been even worse for Wales. Losing Leigh Halfpenny and Rhys Webb to injuries they picked up during last Saturday’s final warm-up match against Italy was costly enough but the previous week in Dublin two of their talismans, Jamie Roberts and Alun Wyn Jones, had been taken off less than 48 hours before announcement of the World Cup squad.
Initial reports said they would be out for long but, as Warren Gatland said in the after-match conference, you never can tell. “I went up for a high ball with Dave Kearney and he went higher than me,” said Roberts, a Test centre on the last two Lions tours. “I got a knee to the ribs and dropped to the floor. I had never been winded like that. I had three nights of terrible sleep in absolute agony. It was one of the most painful injuries you can get but it was only bruising and I am fine now.”
Roberts is unlikely to be risked by Gatland in Wales’s opener against Uruguay next Sunday, instead being held back by the head coach for what the player hopes is the first of a number of big matches for him at Twickenham this year, culminating with the Varsity match in December as he starts studying for a master’s degree in medical science at Queens’ College, Cambridge. After that, he will start a career across the road at The Stoop with Harlequins.
“I feel physically good ahead of the World Cup and I am in the right frame of mind because everything in my life is taken care of beyond the tournament.
“As a player you have to peak every two years, for a World Cup and then a Lions tour. They are moments you want to grasp. We have had a tough 10 weeks preparing for the next couple of months and I would use the analogy of an exam: if you work hard, you are in a much better place. I have done my homework and I am ready to go.”
At 28, Roberts is at his peak, a player, like Jones and Halfpenny, Wales cannot replace in kind. He leads the defence having earned the admiration of the coach, Shaun Edwards, someone not given to false praise, and his ability to storm the gainline from lineout ball is a key ingredient in Wales’s strategy of taking a game to opponents physically, as he showed time and again in Dublin where Wales became the first visiting team to win for nearly two years.
“When you look at the young age backs emerge now, I am a veteran,” he said. George North has won 50 caps at the age of 23, which frightens me a little. Age is just a number.
“I was chatting to Leigh this week: he is out for six months and I said how he had to put a positive spin on his injury, bad and cruel as it is. He will come back desperately hungry to play rugby again in the second half of his career. I know from my list of injuries that, when you have had a long time out, you look back and think it was perhaps a blessing in disguise. He is mature enough to know that it is part of the game and he has been walking round with a smile on his face, wanting the best for us.
“Age does mean you appreciate the big occasions more. I would like to think I have six or seven more years in me but I am in the second half of my career. I want to stay at this level but it is always a constant struggle, fighting for the jersey. You cannot relax for one minute, you are only there for one game. I never take it for granted. It is warfare really.”
Wales are in the same group as the hosts, Australia and Fiji, and against England he will face players who will soon become team-mates, Chris Robshaw, Joe Marler, Mike Brown and Danny Care.
“England always seem to peak for World Cups and the momentum they will gain from a home tournament is pretty significant,” he said. “The whole country will be behind them. Australia have proved their quality in winning the Rugby Championship and, like France, they seem to come good every four years. Michael Cheika [the head coach] has had a huge influence on them and over the years they have come to pip us in the final 10 minutes. I hope for different at Twickenham.
“A World Cup brings another level of excitement. We are confident going into the pool knowing that, if we get it right four times for 80 minutes, we will get through to the quarter-finals. We have done all the physical stuff and now it is about getting minds right; everyone has to be switched on all the time.
“With two of our matches at the Millennium Stadium, we have to make sure that we do things differently so that it does not feel like the Six Nations or a November series.
“Watching the game against Italy and seeing some of your best mates badly injured was horrible but we are a close-knit bunch who drive each other on.”
