Too many changes If I was in charge of the playlist at the Millennium Stadium yesterday, I would have found it nigh on impossible not to slip Bowie’s ‘Changes’ on during the pre-match show. With 14 changes in personnel, 15 if you include Liam Williams’ move to fullback, and a complete overall of the team’s tactics, a fluid performance always looked unlikely. Other than the impressive Rhys Priestland and Rhys Webb, not one of the front row, lock, backrow, centre or back three combinations had played together before. And it showed. There were on occasions some fluid moves through the backline, and it is worth remembering that Wales had two tries disallowed, but on the whole Wales struggled in most aspects of the game. Whilst changes to the backline made sense, radical changes to the front five row did not. Georgia are a team that consists of a scrum and a goalkicker, and if you can nullify their scrum you have them beat, yet it was in this area that Wales’ deficiencies were most visibly exposed, with the Welsh pack regularly looking like they had been fed through a car crusher. But despite the poor performance, at least they managed to avoid the sort of defeat that can blight a player’s career. Every player has a career win for which they are most remembered and equally, a career loss. This was very nearly another Western Samoa or Romania for some players – the stench of which would be hard to shift. Rhys Priestland is back For many in Wales, Rhys Priestland can once again be talked about in the present tense. Although he hadn’t retired from Test rugby, some viewed his move to Bath as the end of his international career. But as anyone who has being watching Priestland at Bath will know, he has been quietly doing the business for the last 18 months. As indeed he did against Georgia. His line-kicking was assured, his passing rapid yet sympathetic and his defence robust – he was the joint top tackler in the backline with seven. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of his performance was his goal kicking. Priestland is a confidence player and when it drops, so too does his goal kicking completion. That was not the case against Georgia, which was made all the more impressive by the fact that his composed performance came amidst, what could have been, an embarrassing defeat. Well played Rhys P. Prop swop Props have long been associated with ‘dark arts’. A selection of poking and prodding antics which which wouldn’t look out of place in a medieval torture chamber. But not satisfied with the hidden dark arts, props are now knowingly or unknowingly involved in a more visible form of skulduggery – passive scrums. During the final minutes of the game against Georgia, Tomas Francis was yellow carded for illegal entry at a ruck – which officially registered a solid 9.8 on the daft-o-meter. During the following minutes, it was adjudged … Continue reading Wales v Georgia – Five things we learnt