By Graham Thomas
Bad defeats to New Zealand are nothing new for Wales, but there were times when this one reminded older watchers of the night Muhammad Ali outclassed brave but doomed British heavyweight Richard Dunn.
That was back in 1976 when Ali – perhaps like the All Blacks – was already long past his best.
But he still had far too much for the limited and ponderous Dunn. After Ali knocked him down for the final time, he began winding up his arm in great circular motions designed to mock his opponent’s readiness to walk onto the next punch.
Ardie Savea did something similar to Wales during his team’s 55-23 victory – an enormous, almost ludicrous, exaggerated dummy just before he flicked a try-scoring pass to Aaron Smith.
Later, just in case anyone hadn’t quite grasped the message of mockery, he swallow-dived so high in scoring, he was almost in danger of cracking his head against the Principality Stadium roof.
But that wasn’t the final insult. In his post-match interview he gave rave reviews to Wales and stressed just how tough and demanding the eight tries to two victory had been.
Oh, and he agreed with the question about how wonderful the stadium is, what a fabulous atmosphere it creates . . . de-dah, de-dah, de-dah.
Special night. I love playing at this stadium my fav bye far in world rugby 🏟
final word @ardiesavea is a BEAST🫡 pic.twitter.com/HdnIjNThau
— Aaron Smith (@Te_Nug) November 5, 2022
What is it about Welsh rugby that it has become more important to celebrate the surroundings, take pride in pre-match rituals with choirs and pitchside flames and all the rest of it, than focus on changing a result that has been the same for 69 years?
Visiting the stadium in the autumn has become like going to a museum.
It’s all there every year in the build-up; the history of this fixture, the grainy black-and-white footage of Ken Jones racing away to score in 1953, Andy Haden falling out of the line-out, even the more recent ancient history of the All Blacks performing the haka in their dressing room.
Dusty old artefacts, all of them – brought out every November.
The New Zealand players and coaches themselves are told to be respectful of all this misty-eyed nonsense. New Zealand Rugby have bills to pay, after all, so they have an attitude of pragmatic tolerance to the Welsh preference for living in the past.
But oh, for one of them to call it out for what it is! For one of them to say afterwards, your’re not very good and you need to concentrate on the present a bit more . . . like, maybe, the Irish.
Instead, All Blacks coach Ian Foster actually said this: “I’m delighted. It’s always a tough Test match whenever we come here.”
Really?
🗣️ “He’s an inspirational part of this team, and leads really well off the field just through his actions.” #WALvNZL
🇳🇿 Ian Foster full of praise for Ardie Savea and the All Blacks after dominant Wales win. #AutumnNationsSeries https://t.co/aHSocvjv0w
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) November 6, 2022
Wales coach Wayne Pivac is, by character, a fairly straightforward individual but you had to peer through the layers of understatement in his post-match press conference when he admitted his players need to muscle up if they are ever going to beat the All Blacks.
After the game had gone the same way as the previous 32 matches between the sides, he said: “There were a lot of good individual performances but I think collectively as a group we needed to at times be a little bit more physical.
“We needed to come off the line and meet New Zealand. We’ve got to make sure when we do get into a game like that we’ve got to keep it in an arm wrestle for as long as we can.”
Wales scored two tries and trailed only 29-23 at one stage, but then conceded 26 unanswered points. For almost the entire last half hour, Wales did next to nothing and scored nothing.
Wales’ only consolation was that wing Rio Dyer scored a try on his debut and Pivac added: “I thought Rio did very well chasing kicks and scored a fantastic try.”
Wales had talked about making history, but as the years go by this fixture seems locked in stone.
Wales were largely outmuscled by New Zealand as they conceded more than 50 points in losing their test at the Principality Stadium on Saturday, coach Wayne Pivac admitted afterwards. https://t.co/KlUwz7ltmy
— Reuters Sports (@ReutersSports) November 6, 2022
There had also been chatter about New Zealand’s supposed vulnerability, but it’s others – like Ireland and Argentina – who have proven that, not Wales.
By the time they return to Cardiff, there will be no-one alive under the age of 70 who was around the last time Wales beat the All Blacks in 1953.
Like Warren Gatland before him, Pivac gets a free pass every autumn from the Welsh Rugby Union.
They have allowed both coaches to claim every year that the autumn is about development. It’s about trying things out, rather than winning. That, and the homage to history.
The Six Nations, they claim, is the tournament that’s about results – as if somehow it’s impossible to make both about winning.
When New Zealand lost a series at home to Ireland in the summer, there was hell to pay. No-one let Foster claim it didn’t matter.
It should always matter.
That Ardie Savea dummy is a weapon of mass destruction 🔥😂 pic.twitter.com/9afKyZ4vIt
— Tshezi Tenza (@mkmaf) November 6, 2022
Yet every year, Wales are allowed to “draw a line and move on” as if their ritual beating by a country of roughly similar size population is somehow just one of those inevitable things that has to be accepted.
In his pre-match newspaper preview, former Wales captain Gwyn Jones had written that New Zealand were like Manchester United, in that the aura of invincibility had gone.
But it’s Wales who are more like United in one sense. United’s owners have built visitor centres in China as a way of monetizing their global fans’ fetish for the past.
The Welsh Rugby Union are doing the same thing with their own stadium. It’s not a theatre of dreams. It’s a mausoleum.
“As forwards, we know we have to front up better than we did today,” admitted Tipuric, a Welsh tryscorer, alongside Dyer.
Death. Taxes. Wales losing to New Zealand.
— Gareth Axenderrie (@gaxenderrie) November 5, 2022
“We let them into our 22 too easily. We let them come at us instead of going to meet them.”
Savea – who blends brutal power with subtlety and showmanship – scored a deserved try and had a hand in three more, while hooker Cody Taylor crossed twice, as did centre Jordie Barrett and livewire scrum-half Aaron Smith.
By the time replacement Samisoni Taukei’aho went over for the final score near the end, Welsh supporters had long fallen silent.
They had seen this old film many times before and they knew there was no happy ending.
