Nott much, mind. This was some way short of a feast, more a curled sandwich.
Perhaps it was the media pressure. Maybe it was internal doubt. But, every time a player, from either side, found himself in space it was as if a major public debate was going on inside his head. The danger, of course, in worrying about external pressure and the wishes of a nation hungry for a return to traditional values is that sometimes it is no bad thing to kick.
Thee players looked confused, often, as to when that might be.
The game is played at such pace and with such physicality that the time left for thinking is reduced to near zero. And that set the pattern for the scoring.
All four tries, three of them Welsh, two of them by Shane Williams, only one in an awful first half, came from broken play so had drama invested in their execution.
But it was altogether a messy affair, blighted by Welsh handling errors in the first half and illuminated only when both teams entered into a contract to abandon the boot in the second.
The modern curse of kicking away possession to avoid potential punishment at the now brutal breakdowns is yet to be exorcised, though.
It took only five minutes for the first kick from hand to send sighs of frustration around the stadium – and it was Williams, the prince of the running game, brought back from temporary exile, who chipped through, although it was a tactically apt choice, with the cover closing and no visible means of support to sustain his run.
T
Thenfollowed a nine-kick rally – the rugby equivalent of clay-court tennis – that ended with Hook kicking dead as the boos oozed up from the crowd.
When would this end, this trial of the masses?
Stephen Jones, it was, who saw an opportunity more attractive than an ISA. He sensed Argentina napping after giving up one of many penalties, tapped and darted 35 metres at an angle to dive over in the corner.
Blessed relief.
Mr Clancy was being inordinately hard on the South Americans, though, missing Martyn Williams offside as well as a late hit off the ball on Gonzalo Tiesi. Rodrigo Roncero was having a nightmare, collapsing at the scrum twice then getting the worse of some finger-pointing handbaggery with Williams (M).
But, to their credit, Argentina did not lose focus. Led by their towering leader, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, a stand-out man of the match, and sustained by the point-scoring expertise of Martin Rodriguez, they harried and crunched, closing corridors of certainty and then driving with purpose up the middle.
Wales led 13-3 turning around and Shane Williams had had enough of the stalling.
Luke Charteris charged down Agustin Figuerola's kick from the set piece, Williams picked up the scraps then, stepping off left and right feet, weaved his way past half a dozen bewildered tacklers to score one of his specials.
Sometimess there is a price to pay for hasty invention, though. On the hour, a quick throw-in by Gareth Cooper to Shane Williams had the ball spinning across field, but the attacking line was unstructured and too deep, so Jonathan Davies, inevitably, kicked, Rodriguez charged it down, gathered, scored and converted to reduce the gap to a single score.
Within moments, Welsh hearts were set beating hard again by, who else, shimmering Shane, who collected another loose ball, spotted unattended acreage that was too good to resist and ran it round under the posts, giving the faithful a little salute to cap it off.
He was back, to the relief of himself, his coach Warren Gatland, Welsh fans and supporters of running rugby everywhere.
"We tried to play some rugby," Gatland said. "Overall, it was a very pleasing performance. We're looking forward to Australia next week. I'm pretty happy. Nice to see Shane back on the scoresheet. Great to see him make a few breaks."
You could say that.
Source:guardian.co.uk
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