There’s clutching at straws, and then there’s Steve Tandy’s post-match assessment. The Wales coach stood in the wreckage of another humiliation, desperately searching for silver linings whilst France celebrated an eight-try, 12-54 demolition job at the Principality Stadium on Sunday.
Four times in five matches under Tandy, Wales have leaked 50 points or more. Let that sink in. England managed 48 at Twickenham last week, and now France have gone one better with a sparkling display of attacking rugby that left the home support stunned into silence. Three years without a Six Nations victory, and the metrics keep getting uglier.
“If you look at the athletes France have, if we kick a little too far, or if there’s an offload, they come alive,” Tandy admitted to the BBC. “You have to tip your hat to France and where they are as a team.”
It’s hard to argue. France produced a masterclass in open, expansive rugby that showcased the gulf in class between these two nations. Wing Theo Attissogbe grabbed a brace, but it was fly-half Matthieu Jalibert who stole the show with a Player of the Match performance featuring one try and three assists, a timely reminder to France coach Fabien Galthié of his quality.
“Sometimes in certain matches with France, when I come on, I’m left with a few regrets because I feel like I’m not myself,” confessed Jalibert, who has previously played second fiddle to both Romain Ntamack and Thomas Ramos. “What I wanted tonight was to give it everything, even if it wasn’t perfect, but to enjoy myself and hold my head high at the final whistle.”
Mission accomplished. Jalibert orchestrated proceedings with precision, exploiting every Welsh defensive lapse with surgical accuracy. Louis Bielle-Biarrey joined six other French try-scorers on the scoresheet, though he was quick to temper expectations.
“Wales are a team in difficulty, but you can see that if we’re not serious, it won’t work,” he said. “We’re very happy to have played a generally complete match today. It bodes well for what’s next.”
That perspective stung. Wales aren’t just losing, they’re viewed as cannon fodder, a team that opposition players warn each other not to take lightly, lest they expose themselves to embarrassment. The two Welsh tries barely registered as footnotes in a match dominated from the opening whistle by Les Bleus.
Tandy, to his credit, attempted to locate positives amongst the carnage. He pointed to improved discipline after Wales collected four yellow cards at Twickenham, praised the set-piece work, and suggested his side could have scored more tries.
“I thought we had moments in the game, our discipline was a lot better,” he insisted. “I thought the set-piece was excellent… we could’ve scored a few more tries. For us it’s transitioning, we’re not where we want to be ultimately. We’re at this point in our journey but it’s looking at where we have improved and keep building.”
Transitioning. That’s the buzzword for coaches under pressure, and Tandy is drowning in it. With fixtures against Scotland, Ireland and Italy still to come, Wales face the very real prospect of another whitewash in the Six Nations. The Italian clash suddenly looms as their most realistic opportunity for points.
France, meanwhile, host Italy in Lille next Sunday with momentum building nicely. Galthié knows the danger of complacency, particularly with younger players riding high on confidence.
“When you’re pushed to the edge of the cliff, you’re capable of doing great things, but when you’re being praised it can sometimes be hard to get fired up in a combat sport,” the France coach cautioned. “There’s great maturity in this team but also lots of young guys. And we need those mature players to keep us on the straight and narrow and make sure we don’t get carried away.”
For Wales, there’s no risk of getting carried away. Tandy’s immediate challenge is restoring belief in a squad that has forgotten how to win at this level. The set-piece might be functioning, but when you’re shipping 54 points at home, the fundamentals elsewhere are clearly broken.
