The Max Llewellyn argument that doesn't stack up when you look at the evidence
In the hours after Wales' Six Nations squad was announced on Monday, the admin of Gloucester's social media account was clearly feeling a little mischievous.
"The Gallagher Prem's top try scorer, Max Llewellyn," was the post, accompanied with a winking emoji and a highlight reel of the 26-year-old's feats at Kingsholm this season.
It's fair to say that post went down considerably better than the decision that inspired it.
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Of the many surprising omissions by Warren Gatland in his Six Nations squad, the decision to leave Llewellyn out is the one that has caused the most uproar.
Former Wales captain Ellis Jenkins was taken aback by the call, posting on Instagram: "No Max Llewellyn has blown my mind."
It seemed few could comprehend the decision. Perhaps Gatland's press conference shortly after the squad would shed some more light on matters.
"He’s pretty unlucky in terms of that," said the Wales coach. "For us probably, there’s a lot of quality 12s around.
"It’s probably 13 is the one position we haven’t got depth. He’s definitely unlucky in terms of missing out on the squad."
When asked if there was anything more that he could have done, Gatland added: "He’s been spoken to in terms of that.
"For him, there’s probably an opportunity to get more touches and get his hands on the ball. He didn’t have any touches against South Africa.
"I know we didn’t have a lot of ball in that game. He’s just got to continue doing what he’s doing."
In terms of what he's doing, Llewellyn is, as his club pointed out, the joint-leading scorer in England with seven tries this season. Beyond that, he's top after 10 rounds of Gallagher Premiership action in terms of line breaks - with 21 to his name so far.
He sits eighth for metres made and third for defenders beaten, having carried for 500 metres and gone past 35 opposition players. In terms of gain line carries, he's sixth with 51 - while he's carried 71 times altogether for Gloucester in the league this season.
Take into account the minutes he's had in the Premiership with Gloucester this season and he's making a metre roughly ever 93 seconds, a carry just over every 10 minutes, a defender beaten every 22 minutes and a line break every 37 minutes.
It's fair to say he makes an impact. Gloucester director of rugby George Skivington admitted he was "surprised", adding that he had planned for Llewellyn, as well as Gareth Anscombe, to be with Wales.
“It is probably tougher for Max because he has worked extremely hard recently to put himself in the position," he said. “He is one of the top try-scorers in the Premiership, he is playing really well, he got all those minutes in the autumn and I think he was probably looking forward to using those lessons in the Six Nations, and obviously he is shocked not to be involved.
“He is a strong character, he is disappointed, but he is going to do everything he can to get selected.”
Clearly, for as much as his club appreciate what Llewellyn is doing, there's a sense that the centre didn't generate that same response in the autumn.
The South Africa clash is the one that Gatland pointed to, but the week prior - albeit in a hammering against the Wallabies - Llewellyn was Wales' best carrier with 101 metres off eight carries. That's a metre made every 47 seconds.
Before that, he also showed up relatively well against Fiji, with 10 carries for 55 metres. A metre ever 87 seconds - pretty much in line with his contributions in the Premiership.
And there were some nice touches as well. His carry in the build-up to Blair Murray's try against Fiji doesn't look like much in isolation, but it's enough to allow Wales' backs to beat Fiji to the edge and put Murray over in the corner.
Minutes later, Llewellyn was put over the gainline by a flat pass by Anscombe, with the centre able to get his hands free to offload.
But it's the South Africa match that Gatland referred to. The fact that, wearing the 13 jersey, Llewellyn didn't touch the ball once in 56 minutes is startling.
But looking a little closer, there's obviously reasons for his lack of involvement. The tone was set within the opening minute.
Whereas earlier in the autumn, Wales had used Llewellyn as a carrier from lineouts, they started the clash with the Springboks by having the centre run a support line outside Jac Morgan.
The Wales flanker carried up, with Llewellyn clearing out.
That was pretty much the story for the match. During his time on the pitch, only two players - Nicky Smith and Christ Tshiunza hit more attacking rucks than Llewellyn.
During his time on the pitch, he hit nine rucks - including three in the build-up to Rio Dyer's first-half try.
In Wales' final defeat of 2024, Gatland's side had 24 attacking sets. Just two went beyond five phases, with both of those being pick-and-go dominated sequences near the Springbok tryline that resulted in scores.
75 per cent of Wales' attacking sets were three phases or less. In the match, they averaged 0.82 passes per phase. The most they moved the ball on any one phase was four passes - going from one touchline to another off turnover ball.
Coincidentally, that was the only touch for Llewellyn's replacement, Owen Watkin. The next phase, they went backwards off three passes, before kicking off the backfoot. In short, they weren't really the conditions for an outside centre to get touches.
That's not to say Llewellyn wouldn't be unhappy with his performance, but it looked like a deliberate set-up that the centre did a lot of support work as Morgan led the team in carrying. When Eddie James came on for Sam Costelow - first as a HIA replacement and then permanently - Wales changed tack a little.
In 51 minutes, James carried five times - second only to Morgan and Dewi Lake in the match. Having moved Ben Thomas to fly-half, they used James more readily as a carrier on first-phase.
That's probably where Llewellyn and Anscombe's omissions are linked somewhat. Losing Costelow late to injury was a blow to Gatland's plans, but the decision not to call-up Anscombe points to Thomas always being in line for a switch back to fly-half again.
Having flitted between styles and personnel last year, it looks like Wales are going for a more physical approach at inside centre once again.
And so, after 11 different backlines and eight different 10/12/13 combinations in 2024, the trip to Paris will see something new once again as we head into 2025.
If Gatland had pointed to last week's head-to-head clash between Llewellyn and James in the Challenge Cup, when the Scarlets centre carried four times and averaged nearly four times as many metres per touch as much as his Gloucester counterpart, maybe the argument would have stood up a little better.
Even making the point that, heading into a Friday night game in Paris with limited preparation, having another English-based player made life difficult could have gone down better.
But the lack of touches against the Springboks doesn't really wash as an excuse when Llewellyn wasn't utilised on first phase and Wales had no foothold to reach the edges in phase play.
Because, statistically, it's hard to make a case for Llewellyn not being in the squad. Compared to his other centres in the squad - excluding Joe Roberts as the Scarlets centre hasn't played enough to feature on OptaJonny's matrix - he comes out pretty well on the carrying front.
Considerably ahead of James, Watkin and Nick Tompkins for try contributions - having been involved in 10 scores in the Premiership - 60 per cent of his carries this season have been dominant. For context, that's quite far ahead of James (41 per cent), Tomkins (35 per cent) and Watkin (46 per cent).
He also commits two or more defenders in just over 70 per cent of his carries, with the other three all managing that around 50 per cent of the time.
It's not all one-way traffic. Tompkins is comfortably ahead on tackle evasion percentage, while James and Watkin both have a better gainline percentage than Llewellyn.
But, it all points to that South Africa game being the exception, rather than the rule.
