Wales vs the Southern Hemisphere
After reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup in New Zealand last year, Wales went on to win the Six Nations Championship and the Grand Slam earlier this year with a clean sweep of five victories out of five. But in between the two of these major events, Warren Gatland's men were defeated 24-18 by Australia in Shane Williams' farewell match at the Millennium Stadium in December, once again highlighting that despite the progress Wales have made in the last year, they are still to match the sides in the Southern hemisphere.
The recent announcement of the autumn tests have proved to be very interesting with Wales due to face Samoa, Argentina and World Cup winners New Zealand in November before ending the series against Australia in December.
The fans' expectations have been raised to new levels after the success of the Six Nations but Wales will have to raise their game once again for their summer tour of Australia which should prove to be a strong indicator as to how they will cope with the four matches later on in the year.
Their record against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, the three sides currently at the top of the IRB World Rankings, is woeful and it is something that Warren Gatland has been desperate to change during his time at the Welsh Rugby Union. With Warren Gatland falling of a ladder and requiring surgery on both his left and right calcaneus, Gatland was ruled out of the tour. Rob Howley was named as the caretaker manager of the tour, this hasn't been the first disruption to the tour with numerous players being ruled out such as Jamie Roberts and fitness doubts over Sam Warburton and Jonathan Davies.
Unsurprisingly, Wales have risen to 5th place in the standings with England occupying 4th place after finishing as runners-up in the Six Nations under Stuart Lancaster. But despite this, Wales' record against the current top three remains an issue. Having played a combined total of 86 matches against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, Wales have only triumphed on 14 occasions, 10 of which have come against the Wallabies, three against the World Champions and only once have they prevailed over the Springboks.
Many have spoken of the current crop of Welsh players as potentially being another 'golden era' in Welsh rugby but only time will tell as to whether or not this Wales side will become as great as that in the 1970's.
.jpg "Henry Pollock, who was part of the England U20s set-up last term, scored two tries off the bench")
