You don’t change a winning team is a sporting maxim as old as the hills. Except, maybe you should, argues Robin Davey, if your name is Rob Howley and you are taking Wales into their final match of the Six Nations against France.
Wales go in search of a sixth successive victory over France on Saturday, and they travel across the channel with an unchanged team.
Fair enough, perhaps – give the side which performed so well and so heroically in upsetting the odds against Ireland last time out another opportunity.
That’s one theory and it can be justified. For no-one, hand on heart, played badly even if Leigh Halfpenny was a bit suspect under the high ball.
But that idea assumes you can’t improve a winning team, that a side achieving a notable win has to be retained pretty much at all costs.
Such a theory means a world class player like Taulupe Faletau is no longer worthy of a place in the side, it ignores the obvious claims of Luke Charteris, it overlooks the possibility that Wales might be even better off if Liam Williams and Halfpenny switched positions, and it denies – again – the likes of Sam Davies and Keelan Giles a first Six Nations start.
Sure, some if not all of the players who have to be satisfied with a place on the bench will probably get on at some stage in the second-half in Paris. But why not start with them?
No-one could possibly dispute that Ross Moriarty has been an outstanding success, putting himself about and generally playing his heart out in attack and defence.
But that’s at No.8 when his best position is probably at six, a path well and truly blocked by Sam Warburton.
So it’s Faletau who has to make way. It’s true he’s been injured for a large part of the season, ironically since leaving Wales and joining Bath.
But he’s fit again and yet he can’t get back in the side. How can that be? How can a player judged by almost everyone to be one of the best No. 8s in the world along with Keiran Reid, and maybe Billy Vunipola, now fail to make the Wales team?
Interim coach Rob Howley has got it the wrong way around, to my mind. Faletau should start for he can hardly be classed as an impact player such is his athletic, footballing style – whereas the more abrasive Moriarty certainly can.
Jake Ball, like Moriarty, has made a big impression this Six Nations, but is he really better than Charteris, a line-out expert, superb about the field and a huge tackler? I’d start with cool hand Luke, too.
And, as many others have observed, Liam Williams offers a bigger threat from 15 with his elusive running, his angles and support play in attack than the more static Halfpenny, shaky under an aerial bombardment against the Irish and a little less accurate with his place-kicking than normal as well.
So while it may be harsh to leave out anyone from the Irish match, that was the easy choice. Being a top coach or manager involves taking difficult decisions which may be unpopular.
Defence coach Shaun Edwards says now is not the time to blood promising youngsters. The summer tour to the Pacific Islands is the place for that, he reckons. Another contentious decision.
None of this is to rule out Wales’ chances of repeating their Irish success. They have beaten France the last five times they’ve met which will give them extra confidence.
And the game is being played against a backdrop of the shock decision to merge Stade Francais and Racing Metro, scores of players being made redundant, and the Stade players staging a strike when they should be playing Castres this weekend.
All of that must have had an unsettling effect on the French and while the national team has showed signs of returning to something approaching their best, this could be the right time to take them on.
They have some mighty forwards, a powerful scrum, and are a real threat again after years of thud and blunder, so unlike teams of the past.
It’s a tough one to call, but there’s little doubt Wales can end their Six Nations campaign in some style and win again – even if a few leading players have been left out.
