Posted by It’s a sign of how far expectations had fallen that going into the 2026 Guinness Men’s Six Nations many Cymru supporters would have snatched an arm off for just one win during the tournament.
Two wins in the previous 23 test matches, both against Japan. No Six Nations or Rugby Championship teams beaten since the win over Australia at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. 11 straight Six Nations defeats and two consecutive wooden spoons in the purest sense of an all-loss tournament. The stats were a painful read.
Off-field Welsh rugby remained in chaos with the threat of a professional club being cut, legal challenges to that and an impending Extraordinary General Meeting to present a vote of no confidence in the Chairman of the Welsh Rugby Union.
Yet sitting here and reviewing Cymru’s performance in the Six Nations some two months later, there’s a sense of positivity and excitement about the men’s national team, despite them on paper having only matched the aim of one win.
That is largely down to the fact that many were opting for one win with the assumption that it would be a scraped and tense affair against Italy having probably lost the other games fairly comfortably. After the round one thrashing at the hands of England that was certainly looking likely, and any victory seemed miles off.
What followed though was a week-on-week improvement that the Welsh supporters haven’t seen for a long time. From tentative green shoots seen against France, to pushing Scotland in a game that probably should have been won, to the best performance away at Ireland in many years and culminating in the relatively comfortable win over Italy on Super Saturday.
There’s undoubtedly been elements of luck along the way; the return to test action of Tomas Francis has been extremely timely, the selection of James Botham and Alex Mann as a flanker duo only really came about after injury to Taine Plumtree, and it’s fair to say that the Scots and Italians weren’t necessarily firing on all cylinders after big wins over England the week prior.
However, Steve Tandy and his coaching staff still deserve huge credit for the progress made. They’ve made some brave selection decisions in backing Rhys Carre at loosehead, replacing Adam Beard with Ben Carter, switching Sam Costelow and Dan Edwards mid-tournament, and sticking to their second playmaker at 12 alongside Eddie James at 13.
And they’ve tweaked the game plan over the weeks to properly bring out the individual strengths of players; getting Carre’s hands on the ball more, giving Mann more freedom to move into the wider channels, bringing James shorter off 10 on starter plays, and balancing the defence between two-man hold-up tackles and jackals so as not to get caught too narrow.
Their man management has been very good, with that fly-half change a case in point as after struggling a touch to adapt to what the attack was trying to do across rounds one and two, Edwards was clearly managed carefully and kept on board so that when Costelow was cruelly struck down by injury, the Ospreys man returned with two vastly improved performances.
Of course that is largely down to the art of communication, and from a supporter perspective it is that which resonates from outside the bubble of the Vale Resort.
Those of us of a Cardiff persuasion already know the strengths of Danny Wilson and Matt Sherratt when it comes to taking supporters along on a journey of rebuilding. Danny did it brilliantly when taking us from mid-table mediocrity to Challenge Cup winners, while Jockey’s path from that summer 2023 low point to a whisker from the URC play-offs was remarkable.
Tandy has shown over the last two months that he is cut from the same cloth, starting with the personal phone calls to players both selected and left out when the initial squad was named, and onwards through his comments in the media which perfectly balanced setting out what is expected of the players, challenging them when necessary but also highlighting reasons to be positive.
There’s no coincidence that the atmosphere within the Principality Stadium over the last two games has been spoken about as the best since crowds returned post-covid pandemic. Supporters have someone to rally around, an honest and likeable coach who is present all-year round and can strike the right tone for the moment.
I’ve never been one who cares for the nationality of a coach – indeed Sherratt and Wilson are both England-born – but where Welsh rugby is at the moment it certainly helps to have someone who ‘gets it’, and can then articulate things in a firm yet empathetic Afan Valley accent.
The road out of the pits of tier one test rugby is still a long and winding one for Cymru. That first Nations Championship game of the summer test window against Fiji at Cardiff City Stadium is huge in terms of continuing to pick up results with trips to Argentina and South Africa to follow, while New Zealand and Australia await in the autumn.
For the first time in a while there is an actual road there though, and that in large part is thanks to Tandy & co’s work on the training pitch, and in the press room. Strap in for the long haul, it will be a bumpy ride, but on the evidence of this Six Nations there could well be some fun to have along the way.
Cardiff Rugby Life 