ever-so-teensy-ickle-wincy-tiny-tot contentious.

Ah, hello, my lovelies! Take the pills and read on...

How are you all? Did you miss me when I was away? Well, if it isn’t too sycophantic to say this, I have missed you all LOADS.

What a totally pants summer, weather-wise. Bludi dreadful. My heavily pregnant wife (9 days till due date! OOOoooh!) must have been the only person who was enjoying the coolth (sic).

Rugby-wise it has been a bit changeable, too…

I am not even going to bother with a comment on the England v Wales game except to quote Emyr Lewis when he said he ‘didn’t know what all the fuss was about as [the team selection] meant nothing – it was a nothing game.’

Argentina game – rather dull.

French game (and this is where the fun starts, get your indignant and outraged hats on, ready) – really very pleasing. Now, please pop a couple of heparin and bear in mind the quality of oppo when reading on…

I thought it was a massively encouraging performance in lots of ways. Let’s start with the most important bits:

The scrum was a bit bendy but the back row were able to pick or clear to the 9. That is good.

The Lineout Was a MASSIVE improvement and was really quite simple and effective. Ball was steady from front, middle and back. When last can we boast of that? So, good, there, too.

Rucks were really much better, in that we kept the bloody ball for more than half a phase. Sod how many we were committing to them, the rucks were allowing us to get tackled and, glory be, retain the ball and try something else. So, that was good, as well.

Now we come to the bit that will be ever-so-teensy-ickle-wincy-tiny-tot contentious.

The slowness of some of our ball and resultant play revealed to me some of the biggest strides the International Welsh game has made in years: We now have the ability to pick and drive and not loose possession. I can’t recall that in ages. And, make no bones about it, my little trout-ticklers, we need to be able to have that in our armoury and to be able to use it. Very good.

Now, amid all the howls of outrage about The Welsh Way and all that ballox, get real – we cannot play only the harum-scarum out wide football.

No.
We.
Cannot.

We need to have a way of retaining ball when defences have slowed down our ball. And defences WILL slow down our ball because we are a dangerous team when we get the ball in a non-constipated fashion.

We have no kicking game, for sure - Morgan can’t and never has been able to, Shanks can but only distance, Hook is tidy enough but can’t do it all on his own and only Shane, who is sporadic at best, can kick with intelligence and accuracy (other than Hooky).

So, we need another way of getting the ball going forward a bit while keeping our skilful mitts on the bludi thing when teams have slowed it down. And, against a very strong French team, we did just that through the slow, forward drives. It was great to see.

But, please understand that it is only one aspect to our game so don’t blather on about Grand Slams and the exciting brand of football blah blah blah – teams have sussed us out; we have lost a chunk of confidence - we need variety to the game to allow us to be effective when we do chuck it about.

I am still not convinced about us having a defined pattern of play that all the players understand or are able to put into practice. But, I am willing to give the team my shout come RWC.

Are you?