Wales dreams of rugby greatness ahead of France clash

At precisely 9am tomorrow morning a nation, embedded in front of its television sets, high on adrenalin, will verge on a collective nervous breakdown.

Wales play France in the Rugby World Cup and the prospect of a place in the final will be too much for some fans. For this is a country emerging, somewhat incredulous, from an era of too many false sporting dawns, but seduced once again, manically, by thoughts of rugby greatness.

The build-up to this game in Wales has been intense, to put it mildly. Ever since last week’s emphatic win against an Irish side oozing class, notions of a rugby-led zeitgeist have been gathering pace.

On Radio Wales barely a beat passes without a reference to “the match”. The national newspaper the Western Mail is permanently book-ended with analysis, comment and tribute. There is even a 20-page pullout supplement inside today’s edition, with its very own “Cut Out Sam Mask”, in homage to the Welsh captain Sam Warburton, whose apotheosis here is all but guaranteed.

If there were any doubts about the love affair in recent years, they’ve been cast aside. “Like Burton and Taylor” says the Western Mail’s rugby commentator Carolyn Hitt, “we always come back in the end.”

Today is officially “Wear your Welsh Rugby Shirt to Work” day. On ITV Wales all on-screen presenters and reporters will have a dash of red on them this evening.

As I write, across the road I can see a woman draping a Welsh flag from her window. Even David Cameron has been persuaded to follow suit.

And then, of course, there is the Millennium Stadium. Earlier in the week, the Welsh Rugby Union said it would open the gates for tomorrow’s game, hoping 25,000 fans would turn up for a big screen showing – 55,000 are expected. Professor Peter Stead, culture/rugby historian, has never known anything like it: “The feelgood factor and the sense of well-being in the country is enormous… we tend to over-hype these things, but with some reason in this case”.

Over the top? Over-hyped? Of course.

Over the top? Over-hyped? Of course. But history has played its part in that. Because Wales, as we know, once memorably produced some of rugby’s immortals – Gareth, Phil, Merv, JPR, JJ, Gerald – and at times it’s felt like we’ve been suffering for it ever since. The legacy of those wonder years of the 70s, when the likes of Barry John weaved his way so majestically through so many defences, has weighed heavily on a public which thought it once had a divine right to rugby hegemony.

Since those heady days there’ve been far too many barren years lost in the bitterness of misguided optimism and sobering defeats. But something has changed in this World Cup, and it’s not just across the Severn Bridge that it’s been noticed. Suddenly, pundits such as former All Black Colin Meads, ex-Wallaby legend David Campese, and England’s very own Lawrence Dallaglio are feting this Welsh team as contenders for the final. It is an extraordinary transformation.

Read more: France overcome England to line up Wales semi-final

The Welsh team’s performance in this World Cup has certainly been striking. Centre Jamie Roberts appears to have rediscovered his British Lions mojo, winger George North at full tilt has been at times imperious, and Warburton et al in the back row have hunted so effectively at the breakdown. They’ve even formed a choir, we’re told, singing their way around New Zealand. Destructive on the field, charming off it. It’s not a bad formula.

But how long can it last? The French stand in the way of the final. Capricious. Sensational at times, fragile at others. Not a great World Cup to date, but then revolution is in the air within the French camp (such are the rumours), and they dispatched England with ease last weekend.

Furthermore, Wales’s recent track record against Les Bleus is not good. Out of the last 11 encounters, Wales have come out on top just twice. And the French, remember, as mercurial as ever, seem to thrive on upsetting the odds on rugby’s greatest stage, as the All Blacks know only too well.

They will relish the opportunity to guillotine any notions of what Welsh rugby’s favourite troubadour Max Boyce has decreed “a religious revival”. The one thing that can be said with any confidence about a Wales-France encounter is that it is rarely dull.

As dawn breaks tomorrow, a nation, allowed to think the previously unthinkable, will hold its breath as a whistle blows 12,000 miles away and pubs, clubs and living rooms across the country erupt in an urgent, desperate chorus of “Come on, Wales”!

It’s been as unsettling as its been euphoric. To make a final would send this country into mass delirium, but as Captain Sam keeps reminding us: “WE HAVEN’T WON ANYTHING YET.”

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