Much has happened since South Africa last visited Cardiff in November 2018. Wales were riding high then, ranked third in the world with South Africa two places below them, and were about to complete an autumn clean sweep. The 20-11 victory over the Springboks would be their ninth consecutive success — an unbeaten run that would eventually extend to a record 14 matches.
Wales went briefly to No 1 in the rankings the following year, but it was South Africa, of course, who won the 2019 World Cup, just pipping Warren Gatland’s team in the semi-final 19-16.
Wayne Pivac took over from Gatland after Japan and endured a torrid 2020, meaning that, even though Wales surprisingly won this year’s Six Nations, they now languish in ninth place in the rankings. South Africa are second, behind New Zealand, who went top after last weekend’s 54-16 victory at the Principality Stadium.
The players who started that game in 2018 are thin on the ground today, with only five from each side, but Ellis Jenkins stands out simply because the 28-year-old flanker has not played a Test since. Having injured his knee so badly in the dying seconds of that match he only returned to action for Cardiff Blues in February.
There have been plenty of further setbacks for Jenkins since, not least a rib injury that ruled him out of the New Zealand Test. He wears the No 6 jersey today, rather than his preferred seven, as a result of last weekend’s blind-side, Ross Moriarty, being ruled out of the autumn series with a shoulder injury and Taine Basham having performed so well against the All Blacks at open-side.
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No matter. Jenkins wore six in 2018 as a late replacement for the injured Dan Lydiate. Justin Tipuric was at seven and Jenkins actually moved to No 8 early on when Moriarty went off. Jenkins was quite magnificent, an obvious man of the match. And now he is back against the same opponents.
“What a story,” Pivac said. “It’s not how we wanted to play it originally. It’s not really going to the script we had planned — he’s more of a seven. But with the injuries we have at six, Ellis has gone across.
“It allows us to play two sevens which we’ll probably have some benefits from with the breakdown work. We’re just pleased he’s back in.”
What is more, Pivac name-checked Jenkins, who has only 11 caps but two as captain, as a leader alongside the captain Jonathan Davies, fly half Dan Biggar and lock Adam Beard in a side shorn of the vast experience of Alun Wyn Jones, Ken Owens and Tipuric, to name just a few.
For this campaign has surely been consigned already to a folder marked “ill-fated”, given that the number of injuries was attracting the attentions of The Lancet even before Jones, Moriarty and Taulupe Faletau were ruled out of the series on Tuesday.
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Northampton’s Biggar, centre Nick Tompkins (who has been in sparkling form for Saracens) and Gloucester wing Louis Rees-Zammit all return from their English clubs after last weekend’s out-of-the-window Test, but there is a sense that this match is already as much about finding depth for the future as adding a fourth consecutive victory over South Africa in Cardiff (there was one in Washington in 2018 too), who last won here in 2013. Such experimentation was something Pivac did last autumn amid much criticism, only scraping wins over Georgia and Italy — along with defeats to Ireland and England — but it did result in that Six Nations success, so maybe there was method in the perceived madness.
“We’re realistic, we’re working hard very day with an end goal in sight,” Pivac said. “If we’ve got 15 or 16 players missing, what we are looking at is who we can build into the programme and learn about and build depth. It’s about development as well as trying to get results. The development side probably grows in terms of what we can get out of this particular autumn series.
“Obviously every time we take the field we know we are representing our country and we know a win is what we’re after. Nothing changes in that respect, it’s a results-driven game but you have to play the hand you are dealt. We’ll be doing our upmost to get the right result.”
Pivac has selected a big front five to try to counter South Africa’s monstrous pack, with Rhys Carré preferred to Wyn Jones at loose-head prop, and Will Rowlands replacing their totem, Jones, alongside Beard in the second row, but whether that will fix the serious set-piece woes that reared their head last weekend is another matter. The lineout was often shambolic and the position of hooker is a real problem; Pivac has named Ulster’s uncapped South African-born Bradley Roberts on the bench while keeping faith with the under-fire Ryan Elias as his starter at No 2.
“They’re fine margins at this level of the game,” Pivac said. “We’re trying to hit the ball at the top of the jumper.
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“Occasionally it’s a combination of things — it can be an overthrow or a timing issue in terms of the lift and jump. It’s something we’re addressing. Hooker is an area where we have two new boys [Kirby Myhill, of Cardiff Blues, also made his debut off the bench against New Zealand].
“They’ll both have had opportunities in these first two games and Ryan, being the senior player, has the responsibility of starting again. We’re sure that he’ll work hard to remedy some of those issues.”
Rees-Zammit made some surprisingly outspoken comments this week about the British & Irish Lions’ ultimately doomed strategy against South Africa last summer. “I just thought we had the wrong game plan, to be honest,” he told The Guardian. “If we’d played a bit of rugby, I think we could have given them a better Test, but we ended up falling into their game plan and that cost us the series.”
It was how Gatland won matches against South Africa, by matching their physicality. Wales struggled with New Zealand in that respect last weekend, losing most of the collisions, so now face a huge challenge against a side who pride themselves on their muscularity and who beat the All Blacks 31-29 in their most recent encounter in the Rugby Championship last month.
Pivac favours a more open game, but without the ball and the gainline it will undoubtedly be a struggle.
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Wales J McNicholl, L Rees-Zammit, Jonathan Davies (Captain), N Tompkins, J Adams, D Biggar, T Williams; R Carré, R Elias, T Francis, W Rowlands, A Beard, E Jenkins, T Basham, A Wainwright
Replacements B Roberts, W Jones, W John, B Carter, S Davies, G Davies, G Anscombe, L Williams
South Africa D Willemse; J Kriel, L Am, D de Allende, M Mapimpi; H Pollard, H Jantjies; O Nche, B Mbonambi, T Nyakane; E Etzebeth, L de Jager; S Kolisi (C), K Smith, D Vermeulen.
Replacements M Marx, S Kitshoff, V Koch, F Mostert, J Wiese, C Reinach, E Jantjies, F Steyn.
Wales v South Africa
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