As were the entire England team yesterday.

Does playing poorly in one game make you an average player? No.

So are you saying Wales were outstanding in all the previous 6 Nations & Autumn Internationals?

The players mentioned may not be average, they are good players after all, but they are definitley inconsistent, and I don't think many of them are truly world class. I define that as putting in outstanding or very good performances regularly, with only an occasional off day where they are ranked as just good!

The word that set's us well apart from the best - inconsistency?

We have been inconsistent for a while. One good performance, then a bad one. Then another good one when the team is given yet another chance to redeem themselves. Then they are rewarded for an improvement, only to drop again. A lot of them seem to know they will only ever be dropped through injury.

I can tell you one difference from 2008-13, the current use of the phrase "lack of strength in depth" which quite frankly is shameful.

An interesting article I found, which says that in the 6N tournaments 2011-16, Wales were the biggest "over-achievers", meaning they won more games against higher-ranked opponents than any other team did. What this probably means is that, despite Wales' success in the 6N, their global rankings were seldom that high because of their poor results against SANZAR, which has led to such a conclusion.
https://www.statslife.org.uk/sports/314 ... erachiever

The secret to Wales' relative success in 2008-13 was training at 5am in Poland followed by standing in cryotherapy chambers intersperesed with trying to catch tennis balls hit by Rob Howley from point blank range.

That was only done one Summer, wasn't it?

Probably, but you get my point.

You have to ask what happened summer 2013?

Wales haven't been right since.

I'll tell you what happened- Warren Gatland was coaching the Lions.

Actually, Wales had an OK AI series in 2013, which featured a record 40-6 thrashing of the same Argentina team to whom they lost a year earlier. The 2014 6N was OK, except for the 26-3 loss to Ireland, which did seem like something out of the pre-Gatland days. Wales almost won in South Africa for the first time but for a penalty try caused by Liam Williams carrying out a tackle that George North should have done. They then did actually beat South Africa for the first time since 1999 in the AI series later in the year. Wales were serious contenders for the 2015 6N, notwithstanding the opening loss to England. Imo the cracks really started to be visible during the RWC - unable to score against 13 men Australia, a narrow and unconvincing win over Fiji and the fewest tries scored by any Tier One country bar Italy. However, the point was that, at the time, this could have been explained at least in part by the ever-growing injury list, so what is disappointing and shocking is how the team has been as bad if not worse since then even with a close to full compliment of players.

The team certainly has not developed since 2015, though I think the cracks were showing before that despite what the stats might say.

They won a lot of matches