rugby
words Hamish Stuart
No excuses for Wales
The best performance in Rugby World Cup for 24 years, potential finalists rather than being on the first set of flights home, but also some lessons for Wales to ponder if they are ever to get better.
First the good news. Wales have an excellent coaching team who work at their best when the players are kept on their toes, there are some young players coming through who are the envy of any team in the world, there is a mighty impressive level of professionalism – so there is certainly loads to work with going forward.
Now the bad news. Fans and followers have been so used to consoling themselves with excuses over the years that it has almost become a culture - and it has to end for the next big step forward.
It is vital the agenda gets changed. The excuse culture has to go.
Wales are becoming good enough that excuses for failure are no longer needed, the next step forward is learning through doing it – what I'll call the Munster method.
It took Munster a few goes at learning the winning formula, they lost two Heineken Cup Finals to Northampton and Leicester they should have won.
The excuse culture took over after the second defeat when Neil Back handled the ball at the scrum and denied Munster a chance to snatch victory. It is worth remembering they lost that fi nal 15-9, so even if they had won the scrum there was plenty to do to have won the game.
However Munster have learned, they just set about making the best of any situation facing them in the fi nal minutes, be it winning through an O'Gara drop goal or gaining a losing bonus point.
They focus only on the possible, on the best case scenario, on what needs to be done. They do not focus on the what-ifs of any situation, just the what- to-do, it is not the how but how many.
issue19twothousand&twelve sportingwales
pictures David Gibson - Fotosport
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