LONG READ ‘The hope is that it’s not a cruel summer for Wales and the good work of the Six Nations is not undone’

A lurch in form for Wales in the late 1980s prompted a Gren cartoon in the old Saturday evening Football Echo which saw the Ponty an’ Pop characters walk past a billboard that read: ‘Welsh trial match: Those Out Of Form v Those Out Of Position’.

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Those were the days, my friend, an era when Wales lost to Bridgend and changed coaches almost as often as the modern-day UK changes prime ministers.

Let’s all agree tough times are not new to the game on the western side of the River Severn, then.

The question for Steve Tandy as he takes Wales into the new Nations Championship is whether the worst is behind the Red Dragons. Admittedly that bar is a low one, with Wales suffering humiliation upon humiliation during and after the record 18-game losing run they endured after defeating Australia at the last World Cup.

Before the first scrum, it’s probably worth noting that the schedule for Tandy’s team is on the far side of daunting, with a warm-up against the Barbarians this Saturday followed by a date with Fiji in Cardiff, then a clash 7,000 miles away against Argentina in San Juan a week later preceding a trek across five time zones and 5,700 miles to face South Africa in Durban on July 18.  Anyone dipping into the realms of onomatopoeia with a ‘phew!’ at this point can be wholly excused.

History underlines how challenging an intercontinental tour can be. In 2004 Wales flew from Argentina to take on the Springboks and, unsurprisingly, failed to find the hosts waiting with cups of tea, sympathy and pillows for the tourists to rest their weary heads. Exhausted at the end of a long season, Mike Ruddock’s team were hammered 53-18 in Pretoria, after which the then Welsh Rugby Union chairman David Pickering declared: “I don’t think it helps international rugby sides who have to hop continents while on tour.” It’s hard to recall if Pickering walked off with an award for Understatement of the Year; he should have. Twenty-two years on, his words still resonate.

But Tandy won’t want to dwell too much on horrible history.

No, his way of doing things will be to emphasise the positives: Wales have started winning again, with a Six Nations triumph against Italy in March following a couple of successes against Japan. True, no-one is suggesting an open-top bus parade and a national holiday should have been organised to mark any of those victories, but after the leanest spell in Welsh rugby history, every plus has to be valued by the coach and his players. Confidence matters.

Anything picked up from the trips to Argentina and South Africa, other than jetlag, will be seen as a bonus.

The coach would also have enjoyed his side’s efforts against Ireland in Dublin and Scotland in Cardiff in the spring. Wales were competitive in both those games. From the low base of being dismantled by England and then France in the opening Six Nations rounds, Tandy’s team showed clear signs of progress – probably not enough to expect too much in the opening Nations Championship sorties, but the coach is building for the World Cup and still has three blocks of matches to make the improvements that are needed.

The hope from a Welsh perspective is that it’s not a cruel summer in terms of results and the good work in the second half of the Six Nations is not undone. Tandy will want an encouraging tune-up against the Barbarians and maybe calculate that his team can cause problems for a Fiji side who haven’t played together since last autumn. Anything picked up from the trips to Argentina and South Africa, other than jetlag, will be seen as a bonus.

Respectability will only be achieved, however, if certain pieces slot into place. The onus for that will be on the players as much as Tandy. For the coming month to be deemed a success, the whole operation – from the head coach to the man who handles the baggage (and, boy, do Wales have a lot of baggage when it comes to overseas tours) – must work smoothly.

Senior statesmen need to point the way

Rewind a couple of years and Wales had a squad short on experience and proven Test quality, having seen a generation of big-name players age together and leave the international scene in rapid succession. How do you even think of replacing the likes of Alun Wyn Jones, Ken Owens, Dan Biggar, Justin Tipuric, Josh Navidi, George North and Leigh Halfpenny? Hadleigh Parkes, departing Welsh rugby in 2020, also left an immense void behind him.

Wales are still very much in rebuilding mode – of course they are – but they have a core of a decent pack taking shape, with skipper Dewi Lake, Dafydd Jenkins, Jac Morgan and Aaron Wainwright in place up front.  Jenkins has been totemic for Exeter Chiefs this season, the best defender in the best defence in English rugby. Count those Jenkins tackles in the Gallacher Premiership over the past nine months, all 244 of them.  Even dogs in the Devon streets understand his importance to the local team.

Encomiums can be written about the other three, too. Indeed, were there a Lions tour this year, then Lake, Morgan and Wainwright, plus Jenkins, would all be strong candidates to make the trip.

Nicky Smith is another who can be considered a senior player, and a very good one at that, with his performances for Leicester Tigers in 2025-26 consistently strong – so strong, in fact, that he started every one of his club’s regular season Premiership games. He will line up for Sale next term, but in the season that’s finishing, Leicester were unable to do without him. As well as Smith, Steve Tandy has Rhys Carre and Gareth Thomas in his stable of looseheads, with Carre an unqualified success during the Six Nations.

Behind the scrum, Tomos Williams has 72 caps worth of experience, while Josh Adams and Louis Rees-Zammit similarly know their way around the international block.

Tandy needs all of the above to step forward and perform this summer.

The key question

“Who are Wales going to start at tighthead?” came the query within seconds of this writer attending a pre-wedding function last weekend. Fleetingly, the thought was that the concern might even come up in the speeches on the big day itself.

Hopefully, not.

But the issue of who is going to wear the No. 3 shirt in the early rounds of the Nations Championship is a major worry, with Tomas Francis, Archie Griffin and Keiron Assiratti all off limits.

Tandy must hope that Dillon Lewis, Ben Warren or Sam Wainwright comes to the fore as a scrummager of true Test quality. At the time of writing, Rhys Henry hadn’t been formally added to the squad, a mild surprise given that he has been building a reputation for himself in the pushing and shoving stakes.

The man who asked the question amid loud music at the aforementioned bash wanted to know why Tom Botha of the Ospreys hadn’t been included in Tandy’s squad, given the absence of Wales’s three leading tightheads. “Botha can scrummage,” the chap shouted above a would-be Robbie Williams telling us on karaoke that he was loving angels instead.

But the South Africa-born veteran isn’t in the mix and how Wales cope with their scrum tests in the weeks ahead will be fascinating.

New coaches

Maybe Paul James will hit the ground running as Wales’ newly installed permanent scrum coach. He will need to. The former Ospreys and Bath prop came through a selection process that reportedly saw his old club-mates Adam Jones and Duncan Jones interviewed.  Both Jones boys would have offered Wales much, but James will as well and impressed Steve Tandy with ‘how quickly he got up to speed’ after stepping in on a temporary basis after Duncan Jones suffered a training-ground injury during the Six Nations.

It’s probably wise not to expect miracles in the short term, with Welsh depth seriously in question at No. 3.

James will bring considerable technical knowledge to the role, as well as a no-frills ability to relate to people. Tandy can be pleased he had such quality applicants for the job.

Missing Tomas Francis for the coming games, former loosehead specialist James is going to have his resourcefulness tested. But the man once named out of position at tighthead to face the All Blacks – like a right-hander being expected to write perfectly with his left hand, he later described the challenge of a prop switching roles – has enough about him to make the best of the situation. It’s probably wise not to expect miracles in the short term, however, with Welsh depth seriously in question at No. 3.

Peter Murchie arrives as the new defence coach with no shortage of positive reviews, pretty much all deserved if his record with Glasgow Warriors and Kobe Steelers is anything to go by. But to suggest his job is a testing one is to deal in serious understatement, with Wales having conceded 56 tries over their last 10 games, a spell when they were widely felt to have improved.

Youngsters to watch out for

Try Exeter back-rower Kane James and Harlequins centre Bryn Bradley, both uncapped but both with much potential, while not forgetting another centre, Eddie James, one of Wales’s standouts during the Six Nations. The Scarlet is only 23, but the way he fronted up during the championship, all physicality and determination, hinted at a big future.

The LRZ poser

“Zam was really keen to play full-back, but the biggest thing is he loves to score tries and is a world-class try scorer,” Bristol Bears head coach Pat Lam told RugbyPass last month about Louis Rees-Zammit. “What he quickly realised, he was a British Lion as a wing. He wants to be, again. He’s a world-class winger.

“We had a discussion, and he said that he’d like to go back on the wing. Every time he’s played on the wing for us, he’s scored tries because our game creates space for the wingers.

“I love the fact that he was honest enough to come and say, ‘Look, Pat, I really want to try playing at full-back’. So basically, he wants to be a world-class winger who can cover full-back.”

Many will agree with such a take on matters. Rees-Zammit out wide can hurt defences with his searing pace; he scores lots of tries and can give opposition backlines sleepless nights with his ability to move up the gears quickly. At full-back he appears to find the positional and aerial challenges difficult to master and is prone to running sideways with ball in hand, hunting for space but in the process blunting his effectiveness as an attacking force.

But if he switches to wing, who should Wales settle on at No. 15? Blair Murray has many of the skills, if not the height to dominate contests in the air. Ellis Mee or Tom Rogers are other options. The 6ft 4in Osprey Lewis Edwards was recently named Super Rygbi Cymru player of the year for his performances with Swansea. Many feel his time will come, but until it does, patience will have to be the watchword for a teenager who has yet to cut his teeth in elite rugby.

The keys to No. 10

Unlike the situation in Downing Street, there is no red-hot favourite to step into place this summer. Dan Edwards is the incumbent after a strong performance against Italy in the Six Nations, but Sam Costelow is back in contention after recovering from injury and will hope the selectors recall his eye-catching cameo as a starter against Scotland.

The more experienced Jarrod Evans will also want a say in matters.

Wales also have a decision to make at inside centre. Do they opt to pick locks or try to batter doors down? A playmaker or a hard runner, then. How they answer that one will tell us much about the way they want to play the game.