By Harry Corish
Dewi Lake has been backed to rattle the Springboks’ cage again this weekend – even though his first coach has revealed it’s not that long since the hooker was failing to make his local club side.
Lake was the name on the lips of most Wales fans after the first Test last-gasp 32-29 defeat to South Africa following a hugely impressive display from off the bench.
The Ospreys hooker scored a magnificent try to sensationally put Wales level at 29-29 in Pretoria, even though they were down to 13 men.
Now, the coach who gave Lake his big break, reckons the 23-year-old can make another devastating impact in the second Test in Bloemfontein on Saturday – highlights of which will be shown on Saturday on S4C.
Matt Silva worked with Lake at the WRU when the teenager was an apprentice and went on to coach the dynamic hooker when Silva was in charge at Bridgend.
Bridgend-born international Lake had a difficult start in rugby terms. Despite being a talented sports all-rounder, he wasn’t selected in the schools Dewar Shield, he didn’t make Ospreys academy, and was languishing as a relative unknown in schools rugby.
“His first representative rugby was Bridgend distict youth at 17 years of age,” recalls former Bridgend and RGC 1404 coach Silva.
“He was identified there as a very late starter. He was pushing 18 at that point, he was playing openside, but within a year he was asked to play hooker because of his body shape.
“He came to Bridgend, but it was a relegation season when he came to us, and he had no experience of hooking, he hadn’t learned to scrummage, and he hadn’t perfected throwing in.
“It was a difficult spell at Bridgend, a relegation scrap. The first two years we were able to experiment but that final year, we had to be on the money!
“For Dewi, he came along a difficult pathway. He got to Bridgend, the door was sort of shut there, and that was his home club. He’s a Bridgend boy. That was hard to tell him, but he needed somebody that needed him more.”
So, Lake went off the prove himself at Swansea, had some games with Neath, and then, finally began to make his mark at the Ospreys as well as with Wales U20s.
The appetite with which Lake got stuck into the world champions last week surprised many and led to calls from fans for the hooker to start this weekend ahead of Ryan Elias.
Instead, Wales coach Wayne Pivac has opted to keep Lake in reserve – a firework to throw onto the field when the Boks feel they have doused the tourists’ flames.
The impact of Lake has impressed pundits such as Graham Price and Jonathan Davies, with Davies suggesting the Ospreys front rower will be the next Wales captain.
But those leadership qualities and attributes were always there, says former Pontypol and Cardiff star Silva – if you knew where to look.
Dewi Lake is just built for Test rugby.
📷: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency. pic.twitter.com/lWGSgnXNYv
— Matthew Southcombe (@MattSouth7) July 4, 2022
“He’s a very tough kid, both mentally and physically. He’s not a fighter by any stretch, but he won’t take a backward stop against anybody.
“He’s very good off the pitch as well. He’s a good friend and a good teammate. He’s a very positive person and as serious as he looks, he has a really light side to him, he’s a gentle and caring bloke.
“For me, training was a big tell tale about Dewi’s potential. He’d pile into our hard men, go up against tough boys.
“He would purposefully put himself against these people, to get stuck in. He would always pick the toughest guys on the pitch to measure himself against. That stood out for me.”
Pivac will need all those qualities from Lake, and others, if his tourists are to go one better than last week’s narrow defeat and earn Wales’ first ever Test victory against the Boks on South African soil.
It was, says Pivac, a close call between his two hookers over which would start but he explained: “Dewi Lake is doing a great job for us coming off the bench.
Those two minutes were wild. We restart the game with 12 men 🥴😅
Somehow get a penalty and kick to the corner. AWJ back on, Dewi Lake 💪
If only. Onto next week ❤🏴 pic.twitter.com/dUjhSkIrEA
— TheWelshDragon 🏴🐉 (@TheWelshDragon9) July 2, 2022
“The fine arts of the game, the scrummaging is where Ryan Elias has got the nod at the moment. There’s great competition and Sam Parry is working very hard in the background to put those two under pressure as much as he can.
“That’s what we want, we are trying to build depth in every position and certainly hooker is a position where there is a lot of competition. but there’s certainly a lot of competition at hooker.”
“We are expecting a South African team to play full of ambition and intensity. We know they will be coming in with one thing in mind only and that is to win a Test match.”
S4C – Saturday: 9.00pm: Taith yr Haf – South Africa v Wales.
Extended highlights of the second Test between South Africa and Wales in the Summer Series, from the Toyota Stadium, Bloemfontein.
