Problems persist but win over All Blacks shows new Wales team has broken through

Résumé détaillé

Wales are back, and all is right with the world. Suddenly the dysfunction at the union, the financial plight, the disputes, the emptying stadiums, the defeats – oh, the defeats –…

So that’s that fixed then. Wales are back, and all is right with the world. Suddenly the dysfunction at the union, the financial plight, the disputes, the emptying stadiums, the defeats – oh, the defeats – feel a very long way away. The All Blacks have been beaten. Seventy-three years of hurt, no more need for dreaming.

The euphoria in the Principality Stadium, however many people were there – or, more pertinently, not there – seemed as eerily familiar as it was cathartic. This was how Cardiff used to feel on match day.

Amid the celebrations, though, Steve Tandy, coach and leading grown-up in Wales, will remain on an even keel. He knows how quickly Welsh rugby can turn itself on its head. There is this win for a start. No one quite knows where it came from, given a record since the last World Cup that read five wins from 31, three against Japan, one against Italy and one against Fiji. Hardly the roll call.

What a difference six from 32 makes. This time a year ago, Wales beat Japan by a point, shipped 50-plus to Argentina and New Zealand and lost 73-0 – that’s 73-0 – to South Africa in this same stadium. And here we are, a 73-year monument gleefully smithereened by a set of players who look really, really good.

“The difference in 12 months is we’re building a group,” said Tandy. “There was a young group then that needed care. They are still young men, but they are growing. They are getting confident. You see them playing well in Wales and outside Wales. It’s about giving them the freedom, because Wales is a tough place to play. We like throwing stones.”

Certainly, to be a rugby watcher in England is to wonder what all the fuss was about. There seem to be Welshmen at every turn tearing up the Prem with abandon. Gloucester are top of the table, thanks in no small part to the form of Dewi Lake, Jac Morgan and Max Llewellyn.

Louis Rees-Zammit, Aaron Wainwright, Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Nicky Smith, Dafydd Jenkins, Archie Griffin – on the list goes.

But they are playing over the…

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