The simple fact is that the New Zealand All Blacks are currently the only team in World Rugby with a six-speed gearbox. The other challenging teams; Wallabies, Springboks, the Irish et al just don’t have that extra gear.
Wales regularly push Australia close when they play in their top gear, however, the engine so often stalls with ten minutes to go. Wales also pushed South Africa close with a remarkable performance. This weekend was not a case of stalling or running out of gas, this was the All Blacks shifting up into a gear that only they have.
This was possibly the best Welsh performance since they dispatched England by a margin of twenty-seven points in 2013. It is exactly a week and 18 months since that day, that is how long it has taken Wales to produce their best rugby.
The performance Wales produced on Saturday would have blown any Northern Hemisphere side away, including Ireland who continue to be magnificent under Joe Schmidt. It was also a performance good enough to end the Welsh Wallaby woes. Warren Gatland said post-match a performance of that level would topple the Springboks for only the second time in Welsh Rugby history.
The worry is that amidst the many positives, the score line was eighteen points in New Zealand’s favour. This is not just a worry for Shaun Edwards, the Welsh defence coach, but a worry for the rugby world.
The Welsh produced some immense performances, with every one of the players putting their bodies on the line. Dan Lydiate was back to his best and brought down anything that moved. Richard Hibbard was guilty of a few overthrows in the lineout but defensively he put himself everywhere with no regard for his own safety.
Dan Biggar and Rhys Webb played exceptionally well from half back and controlled the game very well. Rhys Webb’s sniping opened up the gaps which man of the match, Jamie Roberts plundered through, another player who had an exceptional game.
Dan Biggar must now have cemented the Welsh 10 jersey; he did everything that was asked of him. The Ospreys outside half kicked well, his distribution was excellent and his defence was brilliant for a man of his size. Amazing to think that there was once a time that the great Barry John refused to tackle as it was ‘beneath him’, Barry John could not have played in this test, Biggar was vital.
The defence was brilliant and brutal, the line speed put New Zealand under pressure they rarely face. The All Blacks have a simple game plan but it is used very effectively. They will almost always pass the ball twice between forwards before deciding whether to go wide or to drive forward.
The Welsh line speed meant that the All Blacks had very little option; by the time the ball reached the second receiver (and sometimes the first) they were hit back in the tackle and lost valuable territory.
This pressure saw the All Blacks rattled for portions of the game and attempting offloads that simply weren’t on. Sonny Bill Williams and Beauden Barrett were both guilty of this, and it coughed up possession to the Welsh time and time again.
It is rare that it is possible to find quite so many positives in a loss, particularly a five tries to one loss. This was not a normal game the All Blacks were made to use the extra gear they have, but for 70 minutes Wales had them, and it will give the fans renewed hope after the turgid Fiji game.
So how did Wales lose it after so many positive performances? The positives were all in defence and the attack was blunt in comparison. The Welsh missed chance after chance, chances that New Zealand would not pass up so lightly. Sam Warburton made a break in the first half and with only the full back to beat he had nobody on his shoulder, despite his obvious hand gestures.
Another chance was missed out wide, Leigh Halfpenny and Alex Cuthbert had a two on one opportunity and Cuthbert overran the pass causing it to go forward, a cardinal sin for an international winger. Skip forward to 63 minutes and hooker, Dane Coles and flanker, Richie McCaw executed the two on one perfectly in the build up to Jerome Kaino’s try. This is yet another example of the All Black skillset being far better than that of any other team in world rugby.
There was also the cruel bounce of a rugby ball as it eluded George North early in the first half, and the even crueller bounce as it skipped up into Beauden Barrett’s hands late in the second.
There were individual errors from Wales; the lineout didn’t function for the whole game with over and under throws from Richard Hibbard and Scott Baldwin. There was also the curious decision from Leigh Halfpenny in the early moments of the first half to pick and drive from his five metre line. Wales had earned a valuable turnover and avoided conceding, yet they lost the ball again as the 5ft10 Halfpenny attempted to truck it up. It was a futile task, the ball should have been cleared long down field and Wales could have regrouped.
It was a phenomenal test match and Wales dared to dream that a record that has stood for 61 years may finally be broken. The amount of defending that Wales were forced into caught up with them in the end.
The All Blacks put them under the pump for vast periods of the game and had the defence not been as heroic as it was, the All Blacks would have been out of sight far earlier.
As it was, with Wales leading with 11 minutes left on the clock the All Blacks needed to use their top gear and as Wales tired they became more accurate and racked up the tries.
These All Blacks are simply unstoppable at present. After being rattled for so much of the game they still had the composure, fitness and skill levels to score four tries in thirteen minutes.
No team in world rugby can contend with the firepower of this All Black engine.
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