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'Warren said he was looking for that someone who had a point of difference, that little something extra'

Aaron Wainwright packs down for Wales during the Guinness Six Nations in Italy last February (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Milling around the Vale of Glamorgan, days before Wales left for Japan, the national football side was sharing the same facilities as their rugby counterparts. 

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Being ushered across the road were a glut of Ryan Giggs’ starlets including Manchester United’s Dan James, Liverpool’s on-loan Harry Wilson and Chelsea’s on-loan centre back, Ethan Ampadu. 

James, in particular, was boyish and small-boned. More Lilliputian than Gulliver. Within a minute of them passing, Wales rugby squad members rumbled down the road. The difference in physiques was stark. Alongside George North, Jake Ball and Alun Wyn Jones stood a clean-shaven member of the squad. 

With a floppy fringe, wispy moustache and some familiar thick-rimmed glasses stood Aaron Wainwright, looking like an oversized boyband member.

Thankfully for Wales when the clean-cut Wainwright crosses the whitewash, he becomes more Superman than Clark Kent and his dynamism around the park has led to comparisons with two-time Lions captain Sam Warburton. 

(Continue reading below…)

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Assistant coach Robin McBryde has even said he could be better than the former Welsh icon. A year ago, you’d have said McBryde had his tongue firmly in cheek, but such is the back row’s progress McBryde’s boast no longer seems fanciful.

The 22-year-old was Wales’ standout performer in the summer warm-ups which brought a modest return of one win in four. He made over 80 tackles and bravely stood up to an Irish onslaught, notably throwing himself kamikaze-style at the towering James Ryan to chop him metres from the Welsh try line. The consensus was that he looked to the manor born.

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Picked against Georgia and again for Sunday’s pivotal Australia game, there have been few – if any – murmurs of discontent. Earlier this week, he was withdrawn from action after 50 minutes.

The first support runner on the shoulder of try-scorers Justin Tipuric and Josh Adams, he offered himself as a one-up carrier around the fringes, made his tackles and stopped the gargantuan Mamuka Gorgodze in his tracks, dislodging the ball. His final involvement in a dominant first-half was a flat pass to Hadleigh Parkes on the way to Liam Williams’ score.

Wainright’s rise has been meteoric. When he was first picked for Wales on the summer tour of Argentina 15 months ago, he was barely a household name outside his first club, Old Whitehead’s RFC in Newport. He was playing as a student with Cardiff Met only 23 months ago he was thrown into back row duty for the Dragons thanks to an injury crisis, but his immense work rate started getting him noticed. 

One defensive tracking line against the Scarlets saw him powering past players as if they were stuck in treacle before making a key tackle. It was clear that, athletically, Wainwright could go to the next level. Taking a pew with Wainwright, you couldn’t meet someone more unassuming.

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Twenty-two last week, you were soon reminded of his age when his only World Cup memory is Lloyd Williams’ cross-field kick to Gareth Davies to set up a never-to-be-forgotten victory over England in 2015. For context, this writer can remember while in school watching Paul Thorburn knocking over an injury-time conversion for Wales’ third-placed finish in 1987. Coming from such relative obscurity, you wonder what Warren Gatland had seen in Wainwright’s DNA that made him want a closer look.

Smiling, he told RugbyPass: “Warren said he was looking for that someone who had a point of difference, that little something extra.” When pushed on what those are, Wainwright answered without hesitation. “My work rate around the park. He has asked me to focus on my strengths and hopefully I’m showing that.”

Gatland is clearly a fan, talking up Wainright’s explosivity, lineout ability and game intelligence but he knows he has room to improve. He quipped after a stellar, all-action display against England in Cardiff that he was waiting in earnest for Wainwright’s 50-metre break – like, for example, Warburton made against England in 2013. Is ball-carrying an element he can add to his game?

“Well I’m waiting for my 50-metre break too. Like Warren, I’m hoping that comes in one of the games. I would say I’m pretty quick, so I’ll back myself if the field opens up.”

Wainwright’s prodigious lung-capacity has in part been attributed to a youth playing football where he was on Cardiff City and Newport County’s books. Playing as a central midfielder in the box-to-box style of Steven Gerrard or as a playmaker sitting in front of the front four breaking up play and spreading passes around like Andrea Pirlo. 

When it comes to pace, Wainwright says he can hold his own in the Wales back row. “Our GPS unit tracks our velocity but there are a couple of quick boys. James Davies is pretty sharp but I’m up there. Physically, football has really helped with my engine for 80 minutes. You’re used to keeping the legs turning over and I get around the field okay.”

 

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While his international career is still in its infancy, Wainwright is happy to play anywhere and his trajectory has similarities with England’s Tom Curry as a next-generation back row hybrid, so has he settled which number he wants on his back? 

“I’ve played at openside for the Dragons but for the moment blindside is where I’ve played my best rugby for Wales. It’s where my skill set is most suited. One of my weaknesses is the jackal area, which I’m really working on, and we have a lot of strength in depth at seven at the moment, so maybe it wouldn’t favour me. I’d love to have a crack at No8 one day.”

Wainwright knows he has much to learn and is thankful for the guidance more experienced squad members have given him. “All the senior boys are helping mentor me. They talk to me during the game, encouraging me to do things better. Dan Lydiate was really good in the autumn internationals when I trained and worked with him, Justin (Tipuric) and Ross (Moriarty) who are always on hand to answer questions.”

Another player to give nurture to Wainwright’s talent has been his team-mate at the Dragons, Cory Hill, whose importance to Wales was reinforced by his World Cup selection even when carrying the injury that eventually forced him out of the squad this past week. 

“When I first came to the Dragons, Cory was the main person who came to help me with regards to lineout mechanics and structural play. If I wasn’t getting it, he’d sit me down and have a five-ten minute chat with me to help me out. He’s so experienced, a cool head under pressure.”

With Hill having to fly home, Wainwright will be the only Dragons starter at the Tokyo Stadium on Sunday and following a hard-fought win over Georgia, he believes Wales are still on track to get the better Wallabies who have been lying in the long grass. 

Wainwright is poised to meet two icons of the game. “I can’t wait to face David Pocock and Michael Hooper and I’m looking forward to having a good battle with them. If we can move on to the knockouts to face the likes of Kieran Read (and New Zealand), it would be awesome. I’d love to see how far we can go in this World Cup.”

Wainwright still speaks in reverential tones about the game’s superstars but if he maintains his current trajectory, he will soon be viewed as a contemporary in the years to come.

WATCH: Alun Wyn Jones reveals the blood, sweat and tears of Wales’ preparations to take on the Wallabies

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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