Six Nations verdict: How Gatland the brave angered Wales fans - and tamed the Scots

Played two, won two – five tries to one and sharing top place in the table. Not bad for a Wales team that most people wrote off before the start of the RBS Six Nations Championship. Suddenly the whipping boys are not only title contenders but serious candidates for a second Grand Slam in four seasons.

Yet if you believe their coach, the men who in the space of seven days beat World Cup finalists England at Twickenham and gave Scotland a good hiding are two years short of being a good team.

Three tries to none at the Millennium Stadium – even if the best one by Shane Williams should maybe not have counted – demonstrated that Warren Gatland’s men are moving in the right direction. But if they keep improving at this rate, I reckon they’ll be pretty close to the finished product by the time they face France in what should be the title decider on March 15. Certainly their showing against the Scots was different class to their lucky victory over the English.

Ironically, that showdown with the French in Cardiff is also the final match of the entire tournament – and judging by the way France allowed Ireland to come back from the dead in Paris, Les Bleus are going to face some test.

The fact that Wales were able to take off their magnificent half-backs Mike Phillips and James Hook for the last 20 minutes against Scotland and replace them with the equally formidable Dwayne Peel and Stephen Jones shows the growing strength in depth of the squad.

Hook’s departure came as the capacity crowd were eagerly expecting to see more magic from the majestic outside-half. But, explaining the decision to replace him with veteran Jones, the pragmatic Gatland explained: ‘’I was disappointed in the second half that he had a four-man overlap but decided to go himself and got turned over. It put us under a bit of pressure and we just needed a calm head in the last 20.’’

In the event, the only way Wales were going to lose was through their own ill-discipline. As Gatland observed: ‘’We dominated hugely and the Scots never looked like scoring a try. But a bit of ill-discipline gave away some stupid penalties and kept them in the game.’’

Chris Paterson’s metronomic boot landed five kicks out of five for Scotland – a statistic which could actually have earned his team a draw had none of Wales’s tries been converted and they had missed their own penalty attempts.

It has always struck me as crazy that goalkickers can win rugby matches when their side are completely outclassed in the try-scoring stakes. To my mind, when one team scores three tries to none, they should win regardless of how many times penalties and drop goals are pumped between the posts by the opposition. I’ve felt that way ever since 1980 when Billy Beaumont’s England won the Grand Slam after beating Wales by three penalties to two tries. Under the then scoring system, England won 9-6. Under today’s rules Wales would have triumphed 10-6…and deservedly so. But as a Welsh fan I would say that, wouldn’t I?

In theory a team could score six tries to none and lose the game to 11 penalty goals by the opposition goalkicker. Ludicrous! The winners should be the team scoring the most tries, full stop – just as the team scoring the most goals wins a football match. Goal kicks should count only in the event of both sides scoring the same number of tries. Now there’s an interesting subject for debate…

My try logic explains why I thought France deserved to beat Ireland in Paris, despite that remarkable second-half recovery by Eddie O’Sullivan’s men. Four scintillating running tries to two (one a penalty try, the other a pushover) is pretty convincing in my mind – even if French wing Vincent Clerc came dangerously close to becoming one of the few players to score a hat-trick and finished on the losing side.

Ireland’s courageous fightback from 26-6 down to 26-21 smacked of the Welsh renaissance at Twickenham a week earlier. And had the game gone on another five minutes, they may well have won.
Coach O’Sullivan felt his team ‘’probably deserved’’ to win and added: "The players showed incredible guts and determination today. A lesser team would have walked away 10 minutes into the second half. They showed tremendous integrity."

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