Dark day for Wales in land of rising sun

FOR more than an hour yesterday ina land renowned for its courtesy, Japan overdid the welcome bit to such an extent that Wales had nothing to beat.

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For all that time, the bungling hosts barely missed a trick to ensure that the hapless visitors would avoid the ultimate indignity of surpassing the longest losing run endured by any major rugby nation, of whom Wales used to be one.

Eddie Jones looked down from a vantage point in the shade, steam coming out of both ears at the mess below. His mixture of old hands and new caps kept doing their fumbling worst to shield Wales not so much from the stifling heat but from overtaking the record for the most consecutive Test defeats set at 17 by Scotland 70 years ago.

It was almost as if Japan under Jones were hell bent on being every bit as hapless as Australia had been under Jones when Wales walloped them 40-6 in Lyon at the last World Cup. A dire situation brought a Churchillian piece of rhetoric to mind: