Ofa Tu'ungafasi of New Zealand during the New Zealand Training Sessions. Pic: Getty Images.

Wales To Summon The Spirit Of 1953 . . . But Wounded All Blacks Head To Cardiff With History On Their Side

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By Tomas Marks

In 1953 it was the year that Wales last beat New Zealand and also the year that New Zealand mountaineer Edmund Hillary, and sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest. If Wales are going to conquer the All Blacks after 32 consecutive losses, they will need the extraordinary skill and motivation of these pioneers.

New Zealand have been a shadow of themselves this season with only 6 victories in their last 10 test matches. They’ve lost a home series to Ireland, lost to Argentina at home and lost against the Springboks. In the 1995 RWC, New Zealand beat Japan by 129 points but last week they were in the fight until the final whistle with a narrow seven-point victory.

NZ head coach Ian Fosters’ post-match comments that they will “take the win and move on” isn’t a statement that is commonly heard from this environment. Foster has been under pressure for the last 12 months after only three wins in the last Northern Tour against USA, Italy and Wales and a mixed bag in 2022.

The coaching team has improved with the addition of Jason Ryan as forwards coach and Joe Schmidt as selector and guru on strategy and attack play. However, there is growing concern whether the 57-year-old coach and injured Captain Sam Cane can get the best out of this group of players to gain their fourth RWC title.

As a rugby fan it would be great to see 48-year-old Scott Robertson, current Crusaders coach and six-time Super Rugby winner in international coaching. He’s probably not getting the main gig at the moment as he doesn’t have international coaching experience on his CV, but he could be the point of difference in lifting New Zealand from contenders to winners in 2023.

Having dissected the All-Blacks performance against Japan there were a number of weaknesses. They were operating at average 84% accuracy at lineout and only gained 51% gainline success against a smaller team. Interestingly they only gained 99 post contact metres compared to 111 by the Brave Blossoms. The Japanese coached by the innovative Tony Brown changed the pictures in attack with a lot of variation and were a constant threat on transition attack.

The Japanese will have gained a lot of confidence from this match as their attack and defensive strategy to go passive in the contact area worked and allowed them to make double tackles on aggressive carriers and stopped New Zealand going forward with gusto. They will also be delighted as they went toe to toe with them until the final whistle, showing that the Japanese have the mindset to compete consistently with top tier one nations.

Despite the Brave Blossom performance, NZ were without the Barrett brothers, Sam Whitelock, Ardie Savea, Rieko Ioane and Will Jordan. The All Blacks still managed to score five tries, made 207 passes, 21 offloads and only conceded six penalties in their first game since the end of September.

The influence of coach Joe Schmidt was evident in this first tour match as they used a new variation from a lineout attack play, instead of passing inside to the fullback on a wraparound, they flicked outside to the dynamic hooker Taukei’aho to break the line and give Brodie Retallick a try on his 99th test match.

Unfortunately for Retallick he won’t win his 100th test match in the Principality stadium as he’s been banned for two matches for an illegal cleanout in Tokyo. New Zealand will be much changed for Wales as they are likely to play David Havili and Anton Lienert-Brown in the centre and will bring back Frizzell, Papali’i and Savea in the backrow.

This will be the last time that rugby fans will see Aaron Smith in the Autumn internationals as he’s going to be retiring from the international stage in 2023. He’s been the best scrum half in the modern era, and it will be sad to see him leave the global stage.

As for Wales it would be very Welsh, that after losing to Italy at home six months ago to beat New Zealand. From the current Welsh squad probably Talupe Faletau, Justin Tipuric and Louis Rees-Zammit would get into the NZ starting XV. Japan and Ireland have given Wales a template to beat New Zealand and I’m sure former Scarlets teammates and now international coaches Simon Easterby and Stephen Jones have spoken and compared notes since the Irish series victory in NZ.

The battle plan for Wayne Pivac and his troops will be to dominate the six principles of play. If Wales can be the Kings of possession, go forward, support, continuity, pressure and points they will be history makers like the heroes of 1953.

Wales have selected two emerging stars in their Autumn squad that are very similar to the heroes of 53’. Cliff Morgan and Sam Costelow are very similar in stature, style, location and both magic at unlocking defences. The match winner of 1953 was winger Ken Jones, a lightning-fast player that gained a silver Olympic medal in the 1948 London Games. Today we have the fastest and brightest star of Welsh rugby in Louis Rees-Zammit and he has very similar speed to Jones but the 1953 match winner is slightly faster with an official Olympic time of 10.6s over 100m.

In a time of great economic and political frustration it would be a wonderful escape and joy if the Welsh rugby team ended this ridiculous All Blacks burden. Plan A might work for Pivac but if that all fails, they could always open the roof and hope for an All Black to be sent off by match official Wayne Barnes to get rid of 69 years of hurt.

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