Two tries illuminated an otherwise dull tournament-opener which never looked like living up to the pre-tournament hype. The margin of Wales' victory was somewhat closer than predicted and the Dragons will need to make vast improvements in the next few weeks if they are to avoid the humiliation of being the first RWC hosts to be spectators at the Final.
Following the highlights of Max Boyce in full cry, Shirley Bassey's frock, a perfunctory speech from the Prince of Wales, the retracting roof and a resounding "Land of our Fathers" from the near-capacity 72,000 at the brand new Millennium Stadium, the opening match in the 1999 World Cup, a traditional kicking game was the order of play- as it was in the opening match of the only other World Cup held in the northern hemisphere back in 1991. Nerves obviously played a part in proceedings as pass after pass went astray and moves broke down into confusion. By the end of the match, a crowd who had been in full cry accompanying Catatonia's Cerys Matthews in the pre-match entertainment were reduced to a state of near-silence by a war of attrition that went all the way to the wire.
A try by Colin Charvis was the best moment of the first half, a minute into injury time after the Welsh had been shocked at finding themselve 9-6 down. Hooker Garin Jenkins found himself out of place on the right wing, slipped but managed to retain the ball in order for Howley to fling the ball inside. Charvis was there in front of the posts to cut through some non-existent Argentinian defence to put Wales into the lead for the first time.
Eight minutes after the break, Swansea centre Mark Taylor ran onto a ball from Gareth Thomas to split the Argentinian defence and touch down underneath the posts. Apart from these flashes of inspiration, the rest of the game turned into a duel between the two fly-halves, Neil Jenkins and Gonzalo Quesada who traded penalties throughout the match with Quesada achieving the unusual feat of landing more successful kicks than Jenkins with six well-taken penalties. The Welsh points machine will have to wait a while longer before he overtakes Australia's Michael Lynagh as the world's top points scorer, but his three penalties and two conversions were nonetheless valuable. Most of the penalties resulted from the strong running of the centres backed up by Wales' major ball-carrier Scott Quinnell. A lack of quick ball from both sides meant that a lot of possession had to be kicked away and the stop-start nature of the match definitely favoured the one-paced Argentinians.
Still, one area of Welsh play did live up to its advance billing with the front row in absolutely rampant form. The trio of Rogers, Jenkins and Young completely destroyed their opponents to such an extent that the Pumas front row were intermittently in danger of inspecting the Millennium Stadium's retractable roof at very close quarters as they were muscled skywards by the strongarm Welshmen.
The crowd was also treated to their first sight of Australian-born centre Jason Jones-Hughes who came on for Scott Gibbs in the second half and the former New South Wales back immediately made his considerable presence felt with a massive tackle on Octavio Bartolucci. On this showing he is likely to be given more of a starring role during the rest of Wales' World Cup campaign.
So, a result for Wales but the inevitable question remains, "Have they got a chance of winning the tournament?". It would appear not on their performance against a very one-dimensional Puma side. The Dragons have a mighty scrum but are not the complete outfit quite yet -- as coach Graham Henry has been telling everyone who cares to listen for the past month. It appears he wasn't playing mind games, indulging in devious psychology, or trying to reclaim underdog status for his side. He was telling God's honest truth.
The Teams:
Argentina: 1 Roberto Grau, 2 Mario Ledesma Arocena, 3 Mauricio Reggiardo, 4 Alejandro Allub, 5 Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe, 6 Lucas Ostiglia, 7 Santiago Phelan, 8 Gonzalo Longo Elia, 9 Agustin Pichot, 10 Gonzalo Quesada, 11 Diego Albanese, 12 Lisandro Arbizu (c), 13 Eduardo Simone, 14 Octavio Bartolucci, 15 Manuel Contepomi
Reserves: Gonzalo Camardon, Omar Hasan Jalil, Rolando Martin
Unused: Agustin Canalda, Felipe Contepomi, Nicolas Fernandez Miranda, Raul Perez
Wales: 1 Peter Rogers, 2 Garin Jenkins, 3 Dai Young, 4 Craig Quinnell, 5 Chris Wyatt, 6 Colin Charvis, 7 Brett Sinkinson, 8 Scott Quinnell, 9 Rob Howley (c), 10 Fly Half Neil Jenkins, 11 Dafydd James, 12 Scott Gibbs, 13 Mark Taylor, 14 Gareth Thomas, 15 Shane Howarth
Reserves: Jason Jones-Hughes
Unused: David Llewellyn, Ben Evans, Jonathan Humphreys, Stephen Jones, Andrew Lewis, Mike Voyle
Attendance: 72500
Referee: O'brien p
Points Scorers:
Argentina
Pen K.: Quesada G. 6
Wales
Tries: Charvis C.L. 1, Taylor M. 1
Conv: Jenkins N.R. 2
Pen K.: Jenkins N.R. 3
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