Wales show heart and desire but Gatland’s blunt force fall short

W hatever else is wrong with Welsh rugby, they’ve never lacked heart. You could hear it in Katherine Jenkins’ singing, which must have shattered windows in Aberystwyth, and feel it in the heat of the fireworks that spiralled into the bright blue sky beyond the open roof. For all their failings, the Welsh Rugby Union still know how to organise a show at the Principality Stadium. And you could see what it all meant, too, in the faces of those two old friends and teammates, Alun Wyn Jones, 37, and Ken Owens, 36, as they roared the final words of the anthem, their arms wrapped tight around each other’s shoulders.

Jones’ heart is bigger than most, so is Owens’. Between them, they’ve helped keep Welsh rugby alive despite all its problems for well over a decade now, Jones made his debut in 2006, Owens in 2011. Warren Gatland relied on them all through his first stint in charge of his team, you wonder if he’s surprised to find that he still needs them so badly now in his second.

Owens, of course, is his captain, and Jones was one of a handful of players from that older generation he recalled into the team for this match, along with Justin Tipuric and Taulupe Faletau, after dropping them for the last one against Scotland. Partly, he said, it was that he needed their experience to balance his rookie midfield. In the centres he had Joe Hawkins and the hulking Mason Grady, who were playing together for the U20s just last summer, and inside them the 30-year-old Owen Williams, making his first start at fly-half. But it was more than that. Gatland almost seemed to be challenging his old favourites to deliver for him.

Jones and Owens were two of the key figures in the negotiations with the management that dominated the run-up to this