Boom has turned to bust for Wales in the past, so Wayne Pivac will need time, and his veterans to stagger their retirements
A feature of Wales in the 20 years before the arrival of Warren Gatland as head coach at the end of 2007 was that when they managed to reach the top they had such a bad bout of vertigo that they did not hang around to take in the view for very long. Failure followed success and after the grand slam was snatched from their grasp at the very end in Paris on Saturday night, two other years when they stumbled at the final hurdle came to mind.
Wales faced France in Cardiff in the final match of the 1988 Five Nations having won an unlikely triple crown. They had finished fourth in the previous year’s tournament, and although they went on to finish third in the inaugural World Cup, they were crushed by New Zealand 49-6 in the semi-final and were not fancied to make an impact on the championship.
