NOTHING summed up the Welsh retreat from the 2007 World Cup in France better than the manner of their return home. Dumped out of the tournament by Fiji, Gareth Jenkins, the coach, lost his job, made instantly accountable for the failure. Jenkins was sacked almost immediately after the Fiji defeat, then had to endure the flight to Cardiff with a group of players who knew he was gone.
Martyn Williams decided to retire. “When the final whistle went, it was a shock for me,” Williams said. “To retire was always the plan but to think my last game was losing to Fiji when nobody gave them a chance was as low as I have ever been in a Welsh jersey.
“To be knocked out in that way was devastating. We were back at the hotel in France. It was like a morgue there. Late at night the rumours started circulating that Gareth was going to lose his job in the morning.
“We got up, with all our bags packed to leave, and were told there would be a meeting in the team room before we left. There was Roger Lewis and David Pickering with Gareth next to them and they announced his resignation in front of the boys.”
Jenkins had plenty to say about Welsh Rugby’s then-chief executive and chairman to The Sunday Times last May when he spoke publicly of these events for the first time. Lewis will leave the union after the 2015 World Cup. Pickering was voted off the union last year.
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“It was a horrible trip home,” Williams said. “I remember it vividly because so many Welsh people, including loads of friends and family, had booked to go to Marseilles for the quarter-final because they expected Wales to be in it.
“All of us went back on the bus from Cardiff Airport to our base at the Vale of Glamorgan. But as we turned into the entrance to the grounds the bus stopped, Gareth said thanks for everything and got off.
“There was a media storm waiting outside the hotel and Gareth didn’t have to face it. He went up the back way, and that was the last we saw of him. It was a horrible way to see such a great rugby man go. I felt we had let him down as players, whatever the shortcomings may have been.”
Williams was 32 but he rescinded his retirement when Warren Gatland applied his powers of persuasion in one of his first acts as Wales coach after his appointment by Lewis to succeed Jenkins. Williams was swiftly restored to the back row.
Within months he had added a second Grand Slam to the one he annexed in 2005. Curiously it was from that long-overdue moment of triumph that Williams traces the decline that led to the Welsh demise in 2007. Inside a year of the 2005 Slam Mike Ruddock had resigned as coach.
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“As a group of players we didn’t handle the success of 2005 well at all, just because we didn’t know how to,” he said. “The country went bananas. We hadn’t won a Grand Slam for 27 years. There was a lot of baggage. Perhaps we lost our hunger a bit.
“We were halfway through the journey from the 2003 World Cup, where we had done really well as a young group. In 2005 you’re thinking that’s confirmation of being back on the world stage, a great springboard for the next two years to the 2007 tournament. But for whatever reason it all fell apart.”
Wales went to France in 2007 on the back of a Six Nations salvaged by victory over England in Cardiff in the very last game. They had suffered, until that point, four defeats, including one in Italy when they kicked for a last-ditch attacking line-out only for the referee then to blow for time.
From there they endured the calamity of a 60-point hiding in a warm-up match at Twickenham. Arriving at the tournament, they underwhelmed in a 25-point win over Canada before dragging themselves back to Cardiff to be beaten by Australia.
A big win over Japan, also in Cardiff, followed before the last part of the toing and froing left them in Nantes against the Fijians. Somehow Wales recovered from a woeful start - they were 25-3 down after 11 minutes - to lead 34-31 thanks to Williams’ try at the death.
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“We got ourselves back into it,” Williams said. “I scored an interception try with a couple of minutes left to give us the lead. Fiji kicked off and we didn’t touch the ball again.”
Wales lost 38-34, a prop by the name of Graham Dewes scoring the decisive try that had ramifications for Welsh rugby that are felt to this day.
“I wouldn’t say we took Fiji for granted but I’ve no doubt we already had one eye on South Africa the next week in Marseilles,” Williams said. “The game-plan was to keep it tight, lots of scrums, lots of driving lineouts, make sure it didn’t open up.
“And lo and behold, we were miles behind. It was a boiling-hot day in Nantes. The Fijians caught fire and we get dragged into a game of sevens with them where we are always going to come out second best. They were brilliant.”
For all his admiration, Williams knew Jenkins would have to go, though he did not imagine with how little dignity it would be done.
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“For all the trauma, Welsh rugby was in a rather better state than it had been before. You have to say that was a turning point,” Williams said. “They went out to get Warren and you have to give full credit for that to Lewis. They got the right man in and it’s gone only one way since. I don’t want to criticise Gareth because when you win something it’s a collective effort and it’s the same when you lose. When we didn’t qualify for the quarter-final it was inevitable he would lose his position. We realised that.
“But could it have been handled differently? As players we are not privy to everything that goes on but we, too, have to take responsibility when it isn’t working and the chemistry isn’t there. When you look back now, the preparation was wrong and ultimately we paid the ultimate price by losing.”
South Africa beat England in Paris to win the 2007 World Cup final. Whereas England were the Webb Ellis trophy holders so had been to three finals (1991, 2003 and 2007) in six tournaments and always made the quarter-finals, Wales had failed three times to get out of their pool.
Yet they went from there to the 2008 Grand Slam almost before Gatland had had time to don a Welsh tracksuit. Gareth Jenkins has had cause to wonder if the team would have done likewise if he had been permitted to carry on.
“Even now, the balancing act in a World Cup summer is between the emphasis on warm-up games and conditioning,” Williams said. “They are not necessarily compatible. But conditioning may actually have been where we got it wrong because we seemed to be peaking the next February and March. There’s no way Warren could have got us any fitter in that space of time, so who knows? You cannot overestimate what Warren, and Shaun Edwards and Rob Howley with him, did for us. It’s like what happens in football when a new manager comes in and there’s success just because it’s a change.”
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Williams, who will be 40 on Tuesday, retired for good in 2012 with 100 caps to become a financial adviser and BBC rugby pundit. Wales are about to face Fiji again at a World Cup and his own dismal experience shows how badly wrong it can – or at any rate used to – go.
“In 2007 it was all about getting in peak condition,” Williams said. “The proof was in the pudding. It didn’t work. Maybe when Gareth had come in we didn’t buy into it quickly enough. For all the trauma, it turned out that Welsh rugby was better placed after that tournament than it had been before. It’s actually been a fantastic 10 years.
“We had a blip, if we can call it that, in 2006-7. Apart from that, Wales are usually contenders and though this year’s pool is so, so tight with England and Australia, this could be one of the best squads we’ve ever had.”