Graham Price: Gatland will pay the price but WRU must get the game back on track

Well, after a humiliating defeat on the end of a record-breaking 11th defeat in succession, where do we go from here? What do we do about it?

Do we deal with it as one game in isolation? Or do we just look for some positive aspects and improvements from the previous game, which then forms part of our overall rebuilding process?

Or do we deliberate over why we are in this position in the first place?

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Unless we do something to rectify the third option, the other two options become irrelevant and the danger is they will only repeat themselves.

They will continue to be exercises in papering over the cracks and, consequently, the coaches and players become the victims. They can only do their best under the circumstances.

In the same way that losing becomes a habit that is difficult to kick, it has the potential to become a downward spiral with all the issues that will manifest themselves. One potential consequence could be the game of rugby union no longer being the number one sport in Wales, fewer youngsters taking up the sport, supporters walking out of the Principality Stadium early as they did last Sunday, falling match attendances and, subsequently, the reduction of match revenues.

This is all stuff that is above the pay grade of the players and coaches, but the writing has been on the wall since the mid-nineties. The quick fix at the time was to appoint Graham Henry as national coach.

Shortly after his appointment he expressed his unhappiness with the lack of international quality players available in Wales and he declared his intention to scour the world for Welsh-qualified players. This ended with the ‘Grannygate’ scandal.

In Gatland’s first stint as national coach, he worked wonders with the limited talent available. He moulded it into a game plan that was called ‘Warrenball’ which led to a great deal of success.

However, we have not been able to build on this because of the lack of strength in the regional game. When Gatland left in 2019, the lack of strength in depth was exposed and it was his successor, Wayne Pivac, who eventually suffered the consequences.

But, how we can go from being Six Nations champions, and very nearly Grand Slam winners, in 2021, to wooden spoonists in two years?

My recollections of the 2023-24 season are; the opportunities were there for us to have won all the games apart from Ireland and France. In fact, the only other team we played where we didn’t have enough opportunities to win was South Africa, the current world champions.

Gatland may well pay the price for Wales' bad run of results but the onus has to be on the Welsh Rugby Union to come up with a plan to get the game in this country back on track.

From one point of view, I have no problem with Australia recovering their form when thinking ahead to the British and Irish Lions tour scheduled for 2025. The extra motivation for Australia, if they were to need it, is to become more competitive with the Lions tour in mind.

We all want to see a successful Lions, but their predecessors have always been made to work hard for their wins. We need Australia to be strong opposition to maintain the credibility of the Lions tour concept, so how they fare versus each of the home unions will be very interesting.

Unfortunately, on Sunday's showing, it doesn’t look as if Wales will be contributing many players to the tour. I’m afraid to say I wasn’t able to see any improvements on our performance following on from the Fiji game.

There was a loss of composure that led to us making too many errors of judgement, turnovers at the breakdown and conceding penalties. Our defence, which was once a source of pride, was extremely poor.

We were, again, unable to take advantage of the numerical advantage as a result of Samu Kerevi being 20-minute red carded and they scored three tries during this period. They continued with their game plan as if they had a full complement of players, which is exactly what Fiji did.

Australia’s speed of delivery of the ball from rucks was far superior to ours. This is absolutely essential in breaking down defences by creating overlaps and mis-matches. They even managed put second row Nick Frost clear to score from the halfway line.

Our scrum was about the only aspect of our forward play that came out of the game with any credit. Our lineout problems seemed to coincide with Ryan Elias’ entry onto the field. It didn’t make any difference to the result, on the day, but they were attacking lineouts and, in a closer game, they would have proved to be crucial.

But the next game is against world champions, South Africa, who will be a different proposition to Australia. For starters, they will have a scrum which will be a darn sight more powerful than Australia’s.

In fact, South Africa’s tight forward play is in their DNA. They can send a complete front row off the bench that is as good as any other country’s.

Their driving lineout is also a fundamental component of their game. Just recall the damage Australia managed to inflict on us with theirs.

As you would expect from a team situated at the top of the rankings they are, also, quite accomplished behind their forward power. They are also capable of cutting you to ribbons if you give them the opportunity. It will be very interesting to see how we fare against them.

The team that we selected to face Australia was supposed to be the best that was available. Tom Rogers, James Botham, Aaron Wainwright, Jac Morgan, Dewi Lake, Gareth Thomas and Archie Griffin deserve praise.

Rogers, in particular, really stepped up to the mark. Regarding selection for the team to face South Africa, there is an argument for making wholesale changes but, under the circumstances, I’m not sure that it would prove to be beneficial.

I’m not in favour of making wholesale changes unnecessarily, purely as a means of getting a point across, but who are you going to replace them with and will it effectively weaken the team?

I think this is going to be a very interesting week.