{"id":462488,"date":"2026-03-07T11:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T11:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/462488\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T11:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T11:47:10","slug":"wales-colossus-breaks-six-nations-record-as-fans-all-say-the-same-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/462488\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales colossus breaks Six Nations record as fans all say the same thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Wales player stood tall above everyone else in Dublin<\/p>\n

Wales backrower Alex Mann(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

If Wales are to end a Six Nations drought of 1,099 days without a victory in a Championship they once dominated then Alex Mann will be at the centre of it.<\/p>\n

It understandably took the Cardiff<\/a> backrower a little while to find his feet at this level but in Dublin on Friday night Mann established himself as a proper Test player.<\/p>\n

According to Opta stats Mann’s 32 tackles in the narrow defeat to Ireland has set a record for the number of tackles made in a single Six Nations<\/a> match, surpassing former Wales lock Luke Charteris and Guilhem Guirado on 31.<\/p>\n

Mann was totemic in Dublin, not just without the ball but with it too, as evidenced in the lead up to James Botham’s try.<\/p>\n

“He’s been outstanding,” said Wales head coach Steve Tandy.<\/p>\n

“I think probably Manny doesn’t get the plaudits he deserves, there’s always probably question marks over him whereas we see the player both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n

“We see how he trains, how he recovers and how he looks after himself because he’s not the biggest man in the world, but we see the detail he goes into whether it be a walk through, a preview or a review.<\/p>\n

“He’s growing as a leader as well. Manny I think is an outstanding rugby player and he’s only going to get better and better with confidence.”<\/p>\n

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Many people have held reservations about Mann’s size given the international rugby arena is filled with giants.<\/p>\n

But the Cardiff backrower is himself an extremely physical player with a strong mindset who is a pain in the backside for opposition backrowers.<\/p>\n

His outstanding performance grabbed the attention of many rugby fans and journalists on social media with a large proportion of those believing Mann should have been awarded the official player of the match award.<\/p>\n

But Mann is not alone; Wales’ pack gained the ascendancy for large periods of the second half last night.<\/p>\n

The likes of Dafydd Jenkins, Ben Carter, James Botham and Aaron Wainwright also had strong games which bodes well with Italy arriving in Cardiff next weekend.<\/p>\n

Prominent French rugby journalist Gauthier Baudin summed up Mann’s performance best on social media platform X describing it as: “La performance d\u00e9fensive monstrueuse.”<\/p>\n

It was indeed monstrous and Wales will need more of the same against the Azzurri at the Principality Stadium next weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Wales player stood tall above everyone else in Dublin Wales backrower Alex Mann(Image: Getty Images) If Wales…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55,9015],"class_list":["post-462488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales-rugby-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462488","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=462488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}