Mounting questions for Wales after Durban defeat

So the Welsh rugby season is finally over.

Ten months of hard slog completed as Wales finished their first season under Steve Tandy with a ninth defeat in 12 Tests, following the 43-0 drubbing handed out by the Springboks in Durban.

The Nations Championship had started with some encouragement after the 39-21 win against Fiji in Cardiff.

Any sign of a mini-revival has been quashed with the convincing defeat in Argentina followed by South Africa's latest hammering of Wales.

In the past couple of weeks, Wales have travelled almost 20,000 miles across the world on six flights for two games for this new competition.

They will now have a break and the inquest will begin.

What has been achieved this season and where does the Welsh men's side go from here?

The baiting started early in Durban yesterday hours before kick-off.

A Welsh runner turned up to take part in the equivalent of a Parkrun event and when his nationality was unveiled, he was greeted with some friendly advice from one of the South African competitors.

"We are going to smash you tonight”. Or phrasing to that effect. The South Africans were true to their word.

The Springboks match-day bus pulled up before the game with the squad given a rousing ovation from the home fans who dragged themselves away from their traditional braai's in the car parks surrounding Kings Park.

Then a second bus turned up. Off came the non-match day squad including Cheslin Kolbe, Handre Pollard, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager and Evan Roos, among others.

An example of the gulf between South Africa and Wales as the number one team on the planet hammered the side 11 places below them in the world rankings.

In 2022, Wales won a Test match in Bloemfontein. Four years on, that was never going to be repeated in this one-sided contest. In truth, it was never a contest.

The bookmakers gave Tandy's men a 42-point head start in the handicap before kick-off, proving to be an accurate prediction.

The tourists showed fight and spirit, but it was only Springboks' inaccuracy that kept the score down in testing humid conditions.

At least Wales conceded 30 fewer points and four less tries than the 73-0 loss to South Africa in Cardiff in November 2025.

But they still failed to score a point for the second successive time in this fixture with the aggregate score standing at 116-0 over the 160 minutes.

"I feel flatter after that than the 73-0 loss," former Wales hooker Scott Baldwin told BBC Radio Wales.

"We had everyone available, bar three players, and South Africa didn't have as strong a team as they did at the Principality Stadium.

"There were so many opportunities for South Africa, they weren't clinical enough to finish them.

"Several of those Welsh players went to South Africa four years ago and won a Test match. We look like we have gone backwards over the past two games."

Tandy does not believe the latest loss affects what he has learned this season.

"When you come up against the best and most physical sides in the world, these are the experiences you have to go through unfortunately,” said Tandy.

Wales actually finish the campaign 11th in the world, one position higher than when Tandy took over almost exactly a year ago.

They were 12th when they played South Africa but somehow Italy have slipped below them.

The only three Test victories have been against sides around them in the world rankings in Italy, Fiji and Japan.

In contrast to Wales, Scotland and England won in Argentina this summer and challenged the Springboks.

Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) director of rugby Dave Reddin, who appointed Tandy, has spent the two weeks on this trip with the group.

He will know the gap to the top eight Test teams remains, despite the claims of improvements made in 2025-26.

"We're looking for growth in players and we've seen that from lots of them," said Tandy.

"We've shown more consistency and there have been lots of green shoots.

“There'll be some good moments, some indifferent moments, but that's where we've got to learn and grow.

“This not an overnight thing, this is something that’s going to take a bit of time and this is the path we are on.

"Beating Italy, Fiji, and Japan, the teams around us, at the minute is important.

“Our performances are also important in getting closer to the other teams.”

Wales will try and close the gap further when the Nations Championship returns in November in Cardiff. Japan is a must-win opener followed by fixtures against New Zealand and Australia.

Selection is one of the main tests for an international head coach. Tandy has had 12 games and three campaigns to find out his best starting side.

Former Wales captains Dan Biggar and Sam Warburton do not believe he does yet but the coach does not agree.

"It is getting closer," said Tandy.

"We've got young men as well, in particular a lot of the backline, so we're finding out lots.

"I'm getting clearer, but there's also a balancing act of getting cohesion and also giving boys opportunity as we go."

Tandy is still experimenting at fly-half between Dan Edwards and Sam Costelow, while the centre combination is also not settled.

Scarlets duo Eddie James and Joe Hawkins were given a regular run before replaced by Ben Thomas and Max Llewellyn against South Africa.

It is the midfield dilemma that seems to have Welsh pundits most riled with the call for powerful ball-carriers in the midfield.

The consensus is Eddie James needs to be moved to inside centre at the expense of a ball-playing 12 like Hawkins or Thomas.

Former Wales centre Jonathan Davies made that point before the South Africa game, while ex Wales fly-half James Hook echoed that sentiment afterwards.

"Wales have got physical players they could have picked like Eddie," Hook told BBC Radio Wales.

"It's about how you use players like that."

One accusation is Wales have not developed a distinct style of play.

"I don't know, other than two games, what our identity is," said Baldwin.

"As a coach you speak about becoming a hard team to beat and I don't think we have been, outside two or three Tests.

"We knew what a strength of ours was against Fiji and we got our points from the set-piece, but we are not going to win Test matches consistently off set-piece and five-metre tap penalties.

"What is our game model? I couldn't tell you. I see inconsistencies in us."

Hook believes other nations like Scotland have an identity people can relate to.

"You know exactly how they want to play – they get width and go-forward from [Sione] Tuipulotu," said Hook.

"Even though they are not winning too much, they are an entertaining side.

“At the moment we look like we don’t know what we are doing."

That identity issue is linked with Wales' attacking problems.

Tandy denied there was any fears about the Wales' offensive game under Matt Sherratt, pointing to nine tries scored in the previous two games before the South Africa loss.

"I don't think it's a concern," said Tandy.

"We scored six tries against Fiji, three against Argentina and probably unlucky not to get the fourth."

Despite these statistics, Wales have looked limited and lacklustre with ball in hand during the Nations Championship.

"It needs to evolve, we didn't look like scoring a try [against South Africa]," said Hook.

"When Wales did have the ball, and the few chances they did have, they looked a bit lost.

"Who was carrying? Who was tipping? Who was out the back? It was all one-up runners rather than all on the same page.

"We've got to look at players we have got and how we get them on the ball more often.”

The attacking platform is affected by Wales’ physicality issues as they were again dominated in this facet.

The scrum had been hailed as a positive before the demolition job inflicted by the South Africans, while Wales' defence is also an issue.

New defence coach Peter Murchie has come in and had little time with the players, but Wales have missed 106 tackles in the three Nations Championship games, at an average of 35 a game.

"You can't question the effort and commitment," said Hook.

"But when you miss that many tackles, especially against the world champions, you will be under the cosh."

Springboks double World Cup winning coach Rassie Erasmus has masterminded another successful campaign with wins against England, Scotland and Wales.

Games with Wales have become one-sided affairs, but Erasmus has tried to give long-suffering Welsh fans some hope.

"I had a braai with Steve [Tandy] and the management on Wednesday at the hotel and you can see they're a tight group," said Erasmus.

“I'm not going to say I feel sorry for them, because that'll be the wrong headline. Sometimes you have to get a little bit of belief. We were there in 2017.

"We were beaten 57-0 [by England] and so on. We targeted one big game we could win and the belief came.

"That is what they need. One big game where they turn over a big team and people will start to believe.

“I know Wales a very proud nation, so I hope they get it right.”

Erasmus is not alone in that wish.

But after Saturday night he, like most, will know how far Wales still have to go.