Dissapointing game from Wales. Loosing Warburton was a massive blow, as soon as he went off France simply destroyed us at the breakdown. Pitty, as Warburton started on fire. I've said it before and I'll say it again, why the hell is gatland picking two 6's on the bench? Surely the better option would be having Turnbull who can cover 6 and 7, and a propper second-row on the bench. It's nigh on impossible to compete nowerdays without a propper openside on the field, and we were shown that yesterday. Lydiate and Ryan Jones had great games yesterday, but neither are 7's.
As Cymro has said, our backline is a mess. We created one or two opportunities yesterday, and Halfpenny was very unlucky not to score, but considering the personell in the backline, we should be creating a hell of alot more. Roberts again showed what he's capable of when he's given the bloody ball, rampaging through the French defense, yet we saw him only 2 or 3 times. Jon Davies seems to be really struggling to make the step up to international rugby, and that's a big pitty because I had high hopes for him. We are officially struggling big time at 10 now. Bar one or two good clearances, Hook struggled. His charged down kick was unforgivable, even if his yellow card was unfair. He hasn't got the centres into the game atall during his time at 10, whearas Stephen Jones brought Roberts into the game much more after he came on. Phillips was poor again, but the forwards really need to protect the ball much better ruck time, because the French forwards were disrupting our ball left, right and centre.
When was the last time that we got the wings into the game more than once? We managed to free Halfpenny once, it was just a last ditch anckle tap that brought him down. But that was the only time we got our wingers into space. North showed how dangerous he can be with that beautiful counter attack from his own 22, but again we couldn't get him into the game otherwise.
We need some fresh ideas, and for me that means replacing Howley as attack coach. My personal ideal would be Nigel Davies, he's a prooven attack coach maestro, but I doubt he'd leave his role at the Scarlets. Mark Jones seems to be doing good things at the Scarlets aswell, but needs time to develop as a coach at regional level. How about Lyn Jones? He's always shown himself to be a clever coach prepared to try new things, he'd also jump at the opportunity to coach at a high level again.
Overall, very dissapointed that we finished 4th again for the third year in a row. The opportunity was there to finish 2nd, even if we lost to France, or even 3rd if we hadn't lost so heavily. Suppose it doesn't really matter if we finished 2nd or 4th. Can't believe we just kicked the ball out at the end instead of going for a try aswell! I think we were lucky this year that all of Scotland, Italy and Ireland didn't turn up when we played them, because we could have ended alot lower in the table if they had. There's been little sign of improvement since the Autumn, and I'm very worried about that. Ireland showed against England that it's possible to turn things around and 'click', but when is that going to happen for us? I believe the potential is there, but I'm not sure we'll see it before or during the WC!
