THE Welsh coach Gareth Jenkins learnt on Sunday that sometimes words spoken in haste can be taken literally later.

 

In the summer, after a particularly poor run of games culminating in a dreadful performance at Twickenham, Jenkins said ‘judge me by the results at the World Cup’.

 

On Sunday morning his employers did just that and sacked him following the debacle against Fiji.

 

Going into the game as favourites Wales were expecting to have a tough game but none the less find a winning formula to book a quarter final place against South Africa the following weekend.

 

Things started off well with plenty of solid possession and an early three points from a Jones penalty kick looked promising. But then an amazing 12 minutes saw Fiji amass 25 points including three wonderful tries from Qera, Delasau and Leawere. Going into the break the Welsh were down and out, blown away by the power and exuberance of the Pacific islanders.

 

Of all the teams in the world only France and Wales have demonstrated on a regular basis the ability to have a stunning 15 minutes when all seems lost and so it was here.

 

Tries from Williams, Thomas and Jones in the first six minutes after half time put Wales right back in the game and after swapping penalties the game looked liked it was there for the men in red to push on and win.

 

Somehow though they failed to arrest the initiative and even when an intercepted pass led to Martin Williams running the ball in it never felt as if the Fijians were out of this game. And so it proved.

 

With three minutes remaining Fiji powered forward again and an already creaking Welsh defence finally broke and Graham Dewes just about managed to ground the ball from a final forward drive.

 

The kick was made and despite a frantic three minutes the Fijians held on and won the biggest game of their history leaving Wales with an early flight home and the recriminations that were always going to follow.

 

However close this game may have been, Wales deserved to go out and Jenkins with a record of six wins in 20 matches deserved to be sacked. A lack of composure in the heat of the match was widespread but poor preparation and questionable fitness was equally to blame in what has been a very sobering experience for one of the top nations.

 

Only three hours later Scotland nearly suffered the same fate but managed to scrape through against a well-organised Italian side.

 

Six Paterson penalties may not have led to the most exciting encounter but it was enough to see them through by two points. Following on from England’s comfortable, if not emphatic, 36-20 victory over Tonga the previous evening the home nations now had two out of four teams through with Ireland still to play the next day.

 

Victory was not enough though for the Irish against Argentina, they had to win scoring four tries and secure a winning margin of more than 7 points. This would be a difficult task against most teams at this World Cup but against the South American side it was a distant prospect.

 

The victory margin of 30-15 was not at all flattering and in Hernandez and Conepomi they had the best two players on the pitch.

 

They have been the surprise package and with a quarter final with Scotland to come they are highly likely to get a deserved place on the top table. The most amazing part of their achievement is that they have been excluded from both the Six Nations and Tri Nations and so do not have regular competitive tournaments to take part in and the world game must now find a place for them no matter what financial implications it may bring. 

 

If this weekend, as is highly likely, England lose to Australia and Scotland fail against Argentina then there will be no home nation in the semi-finals.

 

Even worse is that France will probably lose to New Zealand so the Six Nations will be down to zero representatives at this World Cup with two weekends still to play.

 

This tournament is a slog for any fan, spanning six weeks but it will not feel as long as for the home nations as they wait another four years for a chance to win the biggest prize in rugby.

 

We can only hope they have learned from this experience and prepare themselves for the way modern rugby is now played. Many of the management and players will not get this chance though, as they will suffer the same fate as Graham Jenkins and find themselves in the rugby wilderness soon after their team has made an untimely exit.