By Tomas Marks
Wales take on New Zealand’s Black Ferns on Sunday in their second pool match of the Rugby World Cup and it promises to be a tasty fixture after both nations won their opening encounter.
New Zealand trailed by 17 points in the first half of their first home game against Australia, showing they are vulnerable under pressure.
Unlike the Black Ferns, Wales started with a bang against Scotland with veteran fly-half Elinor Snowsill orchestrating territory with varied kicks and creating opportunities for the impressive centre Megan Webb.
The Welsh attack looked quite potent with five line breaks from the impressive Webb, Snowsill, Alisha Butchers and the flying Jasmine Joyce.
However, they didn’t convert any of those breaks and if they are going to beat the hosts they need to be clinical and ruthless.
Wales coach Ioan Cunningham selected four back rowers in the pack last week and this seemed to work well as they were efficient in attack and defence.
Georgia Evans and Butchers were the pick of the forwards in this match and Gwen Crabb, Bethan Lewis and captain Siwan Lillicrap will need to show the same tenacity to compete with New Zealand.
Darts player Fallon Sherron would have been impressed with 100kg hooker Carys Phillips’ throwing performance against the Scots with the ball being thrown meticulously to her lifting pod.
But Phillips is out injured in this match and her line-out and mauling prowess will be missed.
Despite the impressive opening 40 minutes and leading by 15-0, Wales collapsed in the second half with an ill-disciplined performance with two yellow cards.
Scotland forced those errors with scrum and collision dominance to level the scores at 79 minutes.
In fact, Scotland could have won the match by 12 points as they missed all five kicks at goal and were unlucky not to be given penalty tries with several five-metre scrum penalties.
The Welsh coaching team would have learned a great deal from this scenario as they were too late making tactical substitutions in their front row which resulted in them going down to 14 players.
Professional rugby is about 1% margins, and this can lead to either progressing or getting dumped out of a tournament.
The Black Ferns’ Wayne Smith on organised chaos in rugby. A deep thinker about the game.#RWC2021 #CoachingPhilisophy pic.twitter.com/YLW6zPcBkh
— EK Rugby Analysis (@ek_rugby) October 14, 2022
The Black Ferns’ director of rugby Wayne Smith would have analysed and spotted the Welsh weaknesses.
He will have noticed the disorganisation at re-starts, lack of speed in the attacking pods with props, a narrow defence, scrum vulnerability and huge penalty count.
The Black Ferns will look to exploit these weaknesses and blow Wales away in this second pool match.
The danger for 11th seeds Wales is that the Black Ferns scored over 40 points in 45 minutes against Australia, the fifth best team in the World according to the IRB rankings.
Despite the Scottish comeback, Wales still managed to win ugly by going 24 phases with reduced players and Keira Bevan nailing the winning penalty.
Wales have never beaten the Black Ferns in four attempts but with Smith making 12 changes to the starting team that beat Australia there is an opportunity to disrupt and shock a disconnected team.
Always an honour 🤝🏽 https://t.co/HozNjbHtA8
— Rubes Tui (@rubytui) August 27, 2022
History isn’t kind to mass selection changes. Look at South Africa against Wales in the summer, or Wales first home loss to Italy in the Six Nations.
So, there might be hope for Wales and that’s what is needed if skipper Lillicrap is to lead the team to what would be a very famous victory in Auckland.
As a rugby fan, I cannot wait to watch the biggest personality in rugby – Ruby Tui – at full-back for NZ and Portia Woodman against Joyce in the battle of the best wingers in world rugby.
This Sunday is the 25th birthday of tennis star Naomi Osaka and Wales need to replicate her first famous win at the US Open against the mighty Serena Williams in 2018 to overcome the hosts.
Pob lwc, Cymru.