Rugby World Cup 2019: Can Wales lay ghosts of tournaments past?
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By Dafydd Pritchard
BBC Sport Wales in Kitakyushu, Japan
Confidence does not sit well with some in Wales, in which there is a sensation that something will always goes wrong, an underlying pessimism.
In the realms of Welsh rugby, that has enjoyed periods of success, optimism is never more than cautious, particularly in regards in World Cups.
Because, in regards to Wales and World Cups, something does go wrong, that is.
Whether it has been a red card, a raft of a thrashing or injuries, it appears Wales have never had much chance with rugby’s global showpiece.
But this yearthey also enter a World Cup more powerful than they ever have done from the competition’s history: years of preparation culminating at a Six Nations Grand Slam and a record winning streak that aided them leading the world rankings. Even if it was only for two weeks.
Wales have come to Japan in anticipation in addition to expect and, even if they are to win this tournament for the first time, they will need that elusive luck to bury the ghosts of their World Cup past.
Eden Park glistened from the dark, moist in the storms which had hit earlier kick-off, and France were going to have a line-out which would leave an indelible mark.
It was the 18th minute of the 2011 Rugby World Cup semi-final. Imanol Harinordoquy called a go to get a French side who had laboured for the phase of the competition, but had a closing in their sights.
Standing in their way was a Welsh team, the neutrals’ events in New Zealand who had swept under the guidance of the youthful captain Sam Warburton past Ireland in the round.
The open-side flanker had read France’s objectives in the line-out, and he tracked the ball attentively as Julien Bonnaire tapped down it Dmitri Yachvili, who flew a premeditated pass to Vincent Clerc, who’d drifted in from his wing to look for a gap at the Welsh defence.
However, Warburton saw him coming.
“I just hit him” Warburton recalls. “Back then I used to dump-tackle to become assertive.
“Since he was obviously searching to place the basketball, I recall thinking’flipping heck, this has spiralled out of control’ so I just let him move.”
Warburton hoisted Clerc than he’d anticipated and, fearing he would harm his competitor, the Wales skipper lost him.
Clerc, upside down with legs in the air, landed on his head thudded against the turf and his buttocks. As Clerc lay on the ground, his team-mates swarmed. As far as he was concerned, that was a tackle – difficult but fair.
“The way the game’s refereed today, I wouldn’t dare do this,” Warburton adds.
“If you see the quarter-final, when we played against Ireland, I did exactly the exact same into Stephen Ferris and I did the same to Ronan O’Gara and nothing happened. They didn’t twist out of the tackle including Vincent Clerc did his head went in the direction of the ground”
He looked up to watch referee Alain Rolland brandishing a card, once Warburton had untangled himself from the melee.
His immediate response was shock. Even when Warburton had taken his seat on the chair, Wales skills coach Neil Jenkins urged him to stay warm, believing he had just been delivered to the sin bin for 10 minutes.
The confusion extended to the television comment gantry, at which Wales captain Michael Owen supposed Warburton had just been shown a yellow card.
“When I sat on the seat and looked in the big screen I thought I had been hard-done by,” says Warburton.
“But when I watched the large screen and watched that a replay I was gutted as I thought it looked a lot worse than it felt.”
Wales had to play over three quarters of their semi-final with 14 men, and they did so with wonderful character.
Mike Phillips’ try took them within a stage of France and, although Stephen Jones’ missed conversion meant Wales still trailedthey refused to be denied and got one more shot at victory.
However, Leigh Halfpenny’s late, long-lived punishment fell agonisingly short and the Welsh dream expired.
The simple fact that France just lost by a point to some restless and injury-ravaged New Zealand at the closing made things worse for Wales, who may only wonder whether they’d missed their best chance to win a World Cup.
Following the semi-final defeat, the Welsh shifting space was solemnly quiet. Warburton gave a team talk in which he stated how pleased he was of his colleagues’ brave effort and, after he was finishedhe retreated into a bathroom cubicle at which he enabled that the emotion to pour from him as he sat alone, crying.
Warburton feared the worst, most returning home to be vilified as the man who cost Wales the World Cup.
“It was bizarre. If someone mentioned to me ahead of the World Cup you’re likely to be sent as captain at the semi-final, discard the match and I do not like saying this – come back almost like a fanatic, I would have believed how’s that possible? That’s how it occurred,” he says today, eight years and still shaking his head .
“There were folks parked outside my house, hammering my name. I was taken by it from a global participant to – and I really don’t like saying it a globally-recognised international.
“For the incorrect reason indeed. I wish it had been for another reason.
“I go shopping now and people ask me about it. I recall when it happened, considering the time I’d be 60 years old and individuals would still be asking about it. It’s been eight decades and it hasn’t stopped.”
Warburton proceeded to lead Wales to a Grand Slam at 2012 anda year after , he captained the Irish and British Lions to a series win in Australia.
Since skipper in 2017, he guided the Lions to a prominent drawn string in New Zealand prior to retiring in 2018 due to harm.
Warburton enjoyed a stellar career, even if that red card along with the questions about what if around the 2011 World Cup are an inevitable part of the narrative.
And yet that was not the very first time philosophical hopes of winning a World Cup were ruined by a sending off at a semi-final.
This was the first Rugby World Cup and Wales had reached the previous four, somewhat astonishingly having overcome England from the quarter-finals.
“We were not predicted to beat England,” states Wales’ then wing, Adrian Hadley.
“They had booked a resort for the semi-final, however we had not. The Welsh management clearly did not have a lot of confidence in us.”
It was the amateur era, when some Wales players had found it hard to get the essential time off work to share in the World Cup, limiting their championship preparations to only a couple of days’ training before the first match.
“We were not used to anything like it,” Hadley adds.
“We didn’t get much time to spend together as a group before we got out there, but we’ve got much better as the tournament went on.”
It’s a measure of makeshift Wales’ arrangements were that, throughout the championship, they called up a handful of young players who had been playing golf in Australia during the off-season back house.
One of these was Dai Young, who would go on to represent the Lions but that was then an uncapped 19-year-old without the merest idea of what was to come.
“I remember we had one match for Northern Suburbs and the secretary said there was some one in the Welsh Rugby Union pursuing us,” Young says.
“It was the middle of a night out so I thought that it was a wind-up. We carried on with the night, back into the amateur days when everybody had a beer after a game.
“I awakened the next morning to a telephone call from my buddy saying Ray Williams [from the WRU] was hoping to contact me, so I thought it was quite awhile. Then I got the telephone call.”
Young was summoned to train with the Wales squad, imagining that will be the extent of his participation.
“I only thought I would be present to make up the numbers,” he states with a light chuckle.
“I was still wet behind the ears, but we had a few training sessions, they named the group to face England and that I was picked. I didn’t say something as I thought I was hearing things.
“I thought I would only be helping out in training – I didn’t understand what I had done to find that selection. It came and I got my very first cap against England in a really big game.”
The unconventional selection worked as Wales beat England 16-3, and Young kept his place to get the semi-final against New Zealand.
Whereas Wales’ players had prepared with a couple of bonding evenings in pubs, the co-hosts and overwhelming World Cup favourites were on several training camps in anticipation of the tournament.
“They had Frano Botica and Zinzan Brooke on the seat, which tells you all,” says Hadley.
“They have been the best team I have ever faced.”
Injuries not helped wales but, even though they had been completely filled, it would have been an insurmountable job taking to a New Zealand side-by-side form.
The All Blacks pulverised their competitors up front and, if their forwards were not pushing their way over for a try, backs like legendary wing John Kirwan were available to score.
There was additional punishment to emerge, although wales were floundering as they trailed 43-6 in the next half.
The ball has been cleared into the All Blacks’ half gathered by row Gary Whetton. He also swung an elbow at Wales lock Huw Richards, as the resulting maul descended into an untidy pile of figures.
Incensed, Richards delivered Whetton and threw a left hook in his opposite number. But ahead of the Welshman had the time to admire his work, he was blindsided with a meaty punch to his brow by New Zealand amount eight Wayne’Buck’ Shelford.
It was a blow off and Richards dropped into the floor like a felled tree, unconscious that is sprawled onto the turf.
Since the Neath row rose to his toes and obtained treatment by the Welsh physio, he had been faced by a red card from referee Kerry Fitzgerald.
Remarkably, by scoring an effort Shelford escaped punishment and rubbed salt into Welsh wounds.
“The participant couldn’t send off one player rather than the other. Buck Shelford should have been sent . Simple like that,” says Hadley.
“It would not have made some difference. I really don’t think Huw knew until he was back in the changing room he’d been shipped off. He had been in cloud cuckoo land”
New Zealand moved on to beat France in the final and won 49-6.
Richards never performed Wales again.
“They were much better than us,” Hadley adds.
“My partners still take the mick out of me now, saying the closest I got to John Kirwan that day was when we swapped tops in the end. And they were perfect!”
Wales were compelled to drown their sorrows in front of a third-place play-off against Australia, who had irked them.
It was shown to be a form of inspiration, however, as a late attempt from Hadley plus a fine touchline conversion by Paul Thorburn secured a memorable Welsh success.
“They were very cocky. Alan Jones, their trainer, stated they didn’t want to play the game as it might have been overly spammy,” Hadley says.
“We had a point to prove after the reduction to New Zealand, and it was a match against Australia – any chance to overcome them was a large thing.
“We’re much better compared to them daily.”
That guaranteed Wales went residence with the consolation of being the third best team in the world.
“We didn’t know what the World Cup was about to go on to be,” Hadley adds.
“We trained every day, but we had a fantastic time off the pitch too.
“Hopefully Wales can go a lot better and reach the last this time.
“You return to Sam’s red card in 2011 and the accidents at 2015, you want a little bit of chance. We deserve a bit of luck this year, unlike the horrors we’ve had at previous Earth”
Accidents are a grim inevitability of rugby and, the physical toll on players continues to rise, as the sport evolves in savage ways.
Nevertheless the 2015 World Cup, Wales endured more than most before and throughout from the modern game’s bone-rattling criteria.
Already without centre Jonathan Davies, Wales had navigated before completing their tournament preparations two warm-up suits.
This ought to have been straightforward, a last hit-out for the players against opponents before that year, they had hammered 61-20 from the Six Nations.
However a fear was that a Welsh line-up comprised a few gamers that they could afford to get rid of a fortnight ahead of their World Cup fixture that is opening.
To the 22, Rhys Webb introduced a box-kick From the 27th minute and, from the resultant ruck, the Wales scrum-half went for the ball.
Seconds later, his piercing howls of pain prompted referee George Clancy to blow his whistle, along with the Millennium Stadium was befallen by an eerie hush.
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