![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/a1882fb4-25b3-47af-86a9-14cad583702b.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTowards the end of George North\u2019s recently released autobiography there is a telling paragraph about Wayne Pivac, whose short tenure as Wales head coach was sandwiched between Warren Gatland\u2019s two stints.<\/p>\n
\u201cWayne liked to say yes,\u201d North wrote. \u201cOne of the senior players would suggest a change. He\u2019d agree. Another player would put forward an alternative point of view \u2014 which is what you want from your experienced big dogs, the ones who\u2019ve been there and done it. Wayne would agree with them too. It wasn\u2019t always easy to figure out what he really wanted from the collective and the individuals within it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It confirmed the impression garnered all too easily from the outside: that there was confusion in the camp, that Pivac had been engaged to bring a more adventurous antidote to Gatland\u2019s famed \u201cWarrenball\u201d but had soon realised that international rugby did not offer the same space and time that domestic rugby affords, and therefore had changed tack.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tandy takes charge this autumn amid off-field uncertainty after the WRU decided to scrap one of the domestic teams<\/p>\n
ANDREW ORCHARD\/ALAMY<\/p>\n
Wales lacked the identity that had been so evident during Gatland\u2019s first spell. Whether you liked it or not, you knew exactly what Wales would bring to every single Test match then: \u201cGainline presence, physicality, ball-carrying ability, defensive mindset and line speed, the importance of winning the kicking battle and an unrelenting work rate,\u201d as once outlined by his former captain, Sam Warburton, in The Times.<\/p>\n
The problem when Gatland returned was that he did not have the players to play that way. Most of the big boys had gone \u2014 certainly so after the 2023 World Cup, in which Wales actually did quite decently \u2014 and they were constantly outmuscled. Gatland became almost as confused as Pivac had been.<\/p>\n
Now Steve Tandy, bounding into the head coach job amid terrible off-field uncertainty as the Welsh Rugby Union decided to announce scrapping a team days before the players met up<\/a>, is determined that will not happen again and made that very clear when announcing his squad for the autumn internationals<\/a>. <\/p>\n Asked what he wanted by the end of the four-match campaign against Argentina, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa (for the final match he will be without the 12 members of the squad who are based outside Wales), Tandy said: \u201cI think you want an absolute level of performance and to be able to look back on the four games and know what we are, with a clear identity of how we want to play. I\u2019d love to say \u2018four wins\u2019, but that\u2019s not reality. I\u2019d love to be sitting here with people after the autumn, with them all knowing how Wales want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n Tandy wants a team who are tough to beat and reflect Welsh national identity<\/p>\n BEN BIRCHALL\/PA<\/p>\n Later, I pressed him further on that identity. It is clearly important to him and his coaches. \u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about it a lot,\u201d Tandy said. \u201cI think, ultimately, we want to be a tough team, we want to be tough to beat \u2014 that\u2019s probably our identity as Welsh people that goes through generations \u2014 but also we have to look at how we play the game. You look at the No10s we have picked, you look at some of the backfield boys, I think we have to be brave in how we want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n An amalgam of resilience and resourcefulness, then; perhaps, to aim high, a mix of the grit Gatland brought with the dazzling panache for which Welsh players of yore were famed. And there is little doubt that Tandy, once an uncompromising flanker at club level and a successful defence coach with Scotland and the British & Irish Lions, will bring a hard edge, as will his new defence coach, Dan Lydiate. Danny Wilson, the forwards coach, will bring expert technical detail too. And it is also fair to say that Tandy\u2019s attack coach, Matt Sherratt, will bring clarity and invention to his role, as he did as interim head coach last season and during the summer tour of Japan.<\/p>\n But the follow-up question was obvious: do Wales possess the players for it and, in particular, is there the power and physicality to be able to weave the intricate patterns Sherratt desires? Tandy had earlier commented that Wales as a rugby nation are \u201cexceptional\u201d at focusing on what players cannot do.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always look at what we haven\u2019t got, instead of looking at players and saying, \u2018Actually, we\u2019ve got boys who can play rugby,\u2019 and we\u2019ve still got some physical boys,\u201d he said. \u201cYou look at the likes of Nicky Smith, Gareth Thomas, Rhys Carr\u00e9, you\u2019ve got Dewi Lake, Daf Jenkins, and Adam Beard playing in Montpellier, so we\u2019ve got physical players. You look at some of the size in the centres as well \u2014 Max Llewellyn \u2014 you\u2019ve got Louie Hennessey, he\u2019s gone to Welford Road last weekend [playing for Bath against Leicester], he\u2019s being animated, he\u2019s physical \u2014 so I think we have got physicality.<\/p>\n Even the return of Gatland himself could not give Wales the identity they have craved since his first spell as head coach<\/p>\n ANDREW FOSKER\/REX<\/p>\n \u201cI think how you use that physicality is important, we\u2019re not South Africa, so I think that goes back to the first question, how we create an identity to get the best of our strengths around our game.\u201d<\/p>\n As Sherratt said when asked about the power lesson that England had just handed his side at the end of this year\u2019s Six Nations: \u201cI\u2019m not a coach who is going to say we lack power. My job is to find a different way. You can\u2019t coach power but you can coach players to be technically better, play faster, get more one-v-ones and transitional moments. It\u2019s not about power for me. You\u2019ve got to find a way with what you\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n If you look at the possible team, it is perfectly serviceable \u2014 but beyond the obvious lack of deputies, in my view Wales have two other glaring problems that can render all their hopes and aims academic: a distinct lack of depth at tight-head prop and fly half. In the former position their first choice, Archie Griffin, is Bath\u2019s third or even fourth choice, which says it all. The No10 shirt has not been filled satisfactorily since Dan Biggar retired after the 2023 World Cup.<\/p>\n The red No10 jersey has long been saluted, storied and savaged, but this feels a little different \u2014 something predicted in 2023 by the great former Wales fly half Jonathan Davies. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem that has been coming for some time, unfortunately,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve said this for years \u2014 we haven\u2019t developed No10s or 15s.\u201d A Kiwi with a Welsh mother, Blair Murray, has sorted the full back position after the excellence of Leigh Halfpenny and Liam Williams, but the fly-half spot remains problematic.<\/p>\n Sam Costelow, 24, was considered the coming man then but has now been dropped for this campaign, and it will be a surprise if he comes again in international rugby. As Tandy said, the three fly halves selected \u2014 Dan Edwards, Jarrod Evans and Callum Sheedy \u2014 are all attackers by instinct but all have their limitations too, not least that they are all relatively small in stature and therefore are not strong defensively, and do not possess long kicking games. <\/p>\n It probably says everything that there are three players picked in other positions in the squad \u2014 Ben Thomas, Joe Hawkins and Jacob Beetham \u2014 who were considered as potential fly halves by Gatland. He tried Thomas at No10 and wanted to audition the other two there as well. He knew the score.<\/p>\n On his first Test start, Edwards, at 22 so much younger than Evans (29) and Sheedy (30), did play a leading part in the victory over Japan in Kobe that ended Wales\u2019s 18-match losing streak. If Tandy considers him his man, then Edwards must be backed and, at times, protected because, as Biggar said when retiring: \u201cIt\u2019s someone else\u2019s turn to take the shit.\u201d But Max Boyce\u2019s fabled \u201cfactory \u2019neath the mountain making outside halves for Wales\u201d clearly needs some attention.<\/p>\n Wales have tumbled to 12th in the world rankings after their 18-match losing streak<\/p>\n DAVID DAVIES\/PA<\/p>\n Difficulties extend further across the back line. At centre, Wales have fiddled and fudged ever since Jamie Roberts and the other Jonathan Davies once so enjoyed each other\u2019s company on and off the field, and if Ben Thomas plays at inside centre \u2014 as expected because Sherratt is a huge admirer of his \u2014 then that is one very obvious area to target for the behemoths in opposition attacks.<\/p>\n With a team ranked 12th in the world, Tandy has some task. He has spoken clearly and authoritatively so far, and it has to be good for the game that there is a first Welsh voice at the permanent helm since 2007. So, for once, this campaign may not be all about the results \u2014 although victory over Japan is a necessity and one over Argentina would be a significant bonus \u2014 because if Tandy\u2019s team do at least show a clear identity, that will probably be enough. Tough times mean small goals.<\/p>\n Wales autumn internationalsSunday November 9 v Argentina, 3.10pmSaturday November 15 v Japan, 5.40pmSaturday November 22 v New Zealand, 3.10pmSaturday November 29 v South Africa, 3.10pmAll at Principality Stadium<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Towards the end of George North\u2019s recently released autobiography there is a telling paragraph about Wayne Pivac, whose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-233868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wales](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/b841b275-fd85-4504-bcca-efd2d907b982.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Wales](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\/b14fea33-1497-43da-a788-0fa94f8d46fe.jpg\")
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