Do crisis-riddled Wales have any hope in this Six Nations?

If crisis fatigue is real, then Wales must be exhausted by now. Perhaps there will come a time, some day in the far future, when they can enter a Six Nations solely concerned by what is happening on the pitch. Whether their driving maul is an effective weapon or their back three are proficient enough under a high ball to deal with an aerial bombardment.

Alas, that day is not today. Instead, they trundle to Allianz Stadium, Twickenham for what should always be mouthwatering contest against their bitterest rivals England with the depressingly usual slate of existential questions hanging over their heads. If it’s not players on the verge of striking or the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) being embroiled in a racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny scandal then it’s a region on the verge of being liquidated and leaving the country’s second-biggest city with no professional team.

We covered the latest tranche of issues in greater depth here but, essentially, the WRU are set on cutting one of the four men’s professional sides within a couple of years – saying the country can only realistically maintain three teams – and Ospreys look to be on the chopping block, with their current owners Y11 Sport & Media announced as the preferred bidder for Cardiff, who have been under WRU control since entering administration last April.

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However, there is absolutely no clarity on timelines or specifics, leaving a slew of players completely in the dark over their futures. Funnily enough, not knowing whether you’ll still have a job and be able to pay your mortgage come the summer is not necessarily conducive to producing your best rugby in the sport’s toughest annual tournament.

Captain Dewi Lake – a current Osprey himself, who will join English side Gloucester at the end of the season – has resorted to describing the Six Nations as a “welcome distraction” from all the domestic uncertainty. Lake and head coach Steve Tandy have been adamant the squad can block out the noise, focus on the rugby and channel lingering frustrations into positive performances but a calm environment, geared to get the best out of elite athletes, this is not.

And frankly, this Wales team are already embattled enough on the pitch. Since lifting the Six Nations title in 2021 under Wayne Pivac in what feels like a different age, they have won just two matches in four championships. They haven’t won a single game in the tournament since a 29-17 triumph over Italy in Rome in March 2023 and lost a record 18 straight Tests before scrambling a win over Japan last summer and another in the autumn.

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They have haemorrhaged hundreds of caps of international experience over the past few years with a previous, successful generation of players steadily slipping into retirement. The pipeline of replacements has dried up and the conveyor belt of talent has malfunctioned, left unloved by a domestic structure in turmoil. They are left with a squad of rookies where flashes of quality are unable to be nurtured properly because losing has become endemic.

Dragons stalwart Aaron Wainwright, one of the more experienced heads with 62 Wales appearances to his name, might be a world-class back row but it almost impossible to say for sure because, ahead of the autumn internationals, he had won just three of his previous 42 games for club and country. You can only shine so much when you lose every match.

Even things out of their control appear to be going wrong. Just this week, scrum coach Duncan Jones collided with a player during a training session and damaged both knees to the extent that he will undergo surgery. When your luck’s out, your luck’s out.

“It’s an absolute freak injury,” said an almost disbelieving Tandy. “It wasn’t even a high-impact injury. He’ll undertake an operation (on Friday) to get that fixed. I’m disappointed for Duncan, because I know how much it means to him to coach his country and be around the group.

“We feel the group have done their training week, but Danny (Wilson, forwards coach) has got experience of doing that (scrum coaching) and we’ll probably reassess after the weekend.”

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But, hope must spring eternal. Claiming a Twickenham scalp against an England side coming off the back of 11 straight Test wins and legitimately targeting a title tilt is probably a step too far for even the most optimistic Welsh fan but this Six Nations could well provide some indication that they’re at least heading in the right direction. That rock bottom has been reached and the long climb back to respectability has begun.

A single win, and avoiding a third straight wooden spoon, would qualify as a successful campaign and that round five match, in Cardiff, against an injury-battered Italy looms as a golden opportunity. Beating someone other than Japan for the first time since the 2023 World Cup would do wonders for a young group.

And that young group showed flashes in the autumn. For everybody’s sanity, the 73-0 shellacking by double world champions South Africa, in the out-of-window Test where they were shorn of all players based outside Wales, should be disregarded. Aside from that, the 24-23 triumph over Japan, where they held their nerve at the death the come out on top thanks to Jarrod Evans’s final kick of the game, has to be a morale boost and the performance for large parts of the defeat to the All Blacks was superb. The 26 points they scored against a top-four side in the world was testament to that.

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There is talent spattered throughout the squad. The injury to talismanic captain Jac Morgan – their one, unquestionably world-class player – is the bitterest of blows but the impressive Lake headlines a competitive front row that includes of solid internationals such as Archie Griffin, Nicky Smith and Tomas Francis. Meanwhile Exeter star Dafydd Jenkins and veteran Adam Beard form a more-than-serviceable second row, Wainwright is a back-row menace, scrum half Tomos Williams is British and Irish Lion and Louis Rees-Zammit is a game-breaker in the back three.

Depth is an issue, so don’t be surprised to see Wales blown away in the final quarter of matches but Tandy is slowly building something at the Principality Stadium. The head coach himself is well-respected, well-liked and much warmer to his players than the almost comically stand-offish Warren Gatland, while also putting together a high-quality coaching staff.

Attack coach Matt Sherratt has a great track record and steadied the ship while in interim charge post-Gatland, lineout/contact coach Danny Wilson was pilfered from Harlequins at the start of the season in something of a coup and former internationals Rhys Patchell (kicking/skills), Dan Lydiate (defence) and the now-injured Jones (scrum) are all rising coaching talents who are well thought of.

This is a unit that can improve players and that is exactly what Wales need right now. There is little that players and staff can do to alleviate the perennial crises engulfing Welsh rugby but the green shoots of on-field recovery are poking through. This year’s Six Nations may just see them surprise some people.