Posted by How do you begin to dissect another heavy Cymru loss, accompanied by a nil score, at the hands of the reigning back-to-back World Champion South Africa side?
Of course you can focus on the failings of Steve Tandy’s side. Defensively there are too many missed tackles with 26 the number from the weekend, the scrum simply cannot cope under that sort of pressure at just an 82% win rate on our own ball, and the attack is essentially not functioning at all with little gain line success and just a solitary line break made.
Some of those elements, particularly the missed tackles and the blunt attack, are becoming a worry as a recurring theme across this block of fixtures. Although there are mitigation for both where Pete Murchie is new in-post as Defence Coach and building the attack has been low down the priority list behind the foundations of set piece, breakdown and aerial work, if they remain an issue through the Autumn then serious questions will be asked.
There were some questions around the Cymru team selection and whether picking the biggest side possible, i.e James Botham in the back row, Eddie James at inside centre, would have been a better approach against a side as physical as South Africa. For my money though that would have been a pointless exercise as even our biggest team would still be dominated in contact.
Scotland set out the blueprint of stressing the Springboks the week before when they played with variation, pace and width to make 15 line breaks and score four tries. Trying to fight fire with fire is not the way to go, but there is a need to actually be able to execute any game plan that involves playing around the opposition.
Ultimately though, the bigger picture is that this South Africa side may be the best test team to have ever played the game. It is of course difficult to compare across eras, and the case can be made that other teams in history may have had better starting XVs when all are fit and available, but the sheer depth available to Rassie Erasmus is unmatched in my view.
I say this as someone not necessarily fond of anything to do with the Springboks; a scarily high percentage of their online supporters are some of the worst people you could ever have the displeasure of interacting with, Erasmus himself is a pretty objectionable character and there is an unavoidable concern around the use of PEDs in the development pathway in particular.
However, leaving aside the concerns on how it is created, it cannot be denied that their player pool is the strongest in the world in the moment and almost certainly the best of all-time, with elements of even their 5th best XV likely starting for the majority of other tier one nations.
The plight of Cymru over the last three years has been well documented, so to expect them to be anywhere near competitive with any team that South Africa field at this moment in time is fanciful. It probably won’t be until towards the end of the 2031 Rugby World Cup cycle that the men in red can even hope to be getting close to a result in this fixture.
A review of Tandy’s side’s performance in this summer section of the Nations Championship will undoubtedly throw up lots of questions around elements of play such as those above, but any focus on the result from Durban on Saturday is misguided such is the gulf in quality between the two sides and the very different circumstances they are operating under.
Instead we can only dream of the days coming around again when Cymru genuinely went toe-to-toe with the Springboks.
Cardiff Rugby Life 