There’s been a lot of discussion in Wales about bringing back the National Academy set-up that produced so many of our most recent golden era. I was part of it towards the end of its existence. Not every player who came through it did kick on, but what it did was put you under a microscope to identify and target your strengths and weaknesses in order to give you the best shot of making it as a pro.
A big emphasis was placed on strength and conditioning. I hate it when people say that players spend too much time in the gym – that's just not true. Gym work and rugby skills aren't mutually exclusive: you have to do them both. Speed, strength and power foundations are built in the gym. It’s not a coincidence that some of the best ball carriers and offloaders in the world are the strongest and most powerful players: their strength means they can dominate collisions which allows them to offload on their terms.
Look at Antoine Dupont. He may be considered ‘small’, but he is an absolute animal. I remember Shaun Edwards telling me that Dupont is lifting more than lots of the forwards. There is a lot of debate around whether he can be considered the GOAT but he is the best rugby player I’ve ever seen – and by a stretch as well. You’ve seen the highlight reels and the try assists, but his overall passing and kicking game is absolute gold dust. For a pack of forwards to get up and see that your scrum-half has kicked you to touch 40-50 yards up the field every time (off either foot) is priceless. It keeps an already physically dominant pack fresh and moving forwards, and buoyant going to every lineout.
Another ‘small’ superstar is Cheslin Kolbe, who I first played against back in an U20 World Cup semi-final in 2013. If you stand next to him, you see how muscular he is. As much as people have got this romantic notion of rugby being a game for all shapes and sizes, at the top level, I’m not quite sure that’s true any more.
When Leigh Halfpenny broke onto the scene and went on a British and Irish Lions tour as a 19-year-old, he was all there physically, whereas I've noticed a massive drop-off in some of the physicality of players coming through the academies in Wales. Today, boys are entering a senior environment and playing at 18, 19, or 20 and are rarely physically prepared for senior rugby.
I played for Cardiff Blues when I was 18, and that was probably the strongest I ever was. You then start playing week in, week out, and you pick up bumps and injuries and it becomes a case of holding onto as much strength as you can until the end of the season, when you then get a little break from games to recover (unless you're playing international rugby, in which case you don't).
That’s one of the reasons Alun Wyn Jones was so special: he managed to train like it was pre-season every week. Every Monday after a match he’d be going hard in the gym and sprinting around the field, while some of us other guys were still banged up and sore from the weekend.
Success stems from having a strong pathway. It’s no coincidence that Sam Warburton’s Wales U20 team won the Grand Slam and reached a Junior World Cup semi-final in 2008, and years of success followed, while the U20 teams I played in reached a Junior World Cup semi-final in 2012 and final in 2013 and added to the success of the Wales team in the following years.
France have won three of the last four World Rugby U20 Championships, which is why they are producing results like the ones we saw against Wales in round one of the Championship. Italy too are reaping the benefits of a strong pathway that was implemented by Conor O’Shea during his time there, with their U18s and U20s picking up some big results and that translating into marked improvements in the senior team. That structure then feeds into their club system, where Benetton are the standard bearers.
The Italian rugby federation has essentially put all its eggs in Benetton’s basket recently, with Zebre more of a development team. It means that, like with the Leinster and Ireland dynamic, the Benetton boys play together a lot and at a higher level, which then translates to the Italy set-up.
Wales will likely face a midfield combination in Rome this weekend featuring Benetton’s Juan Ignacio Brex and last year’s Guinnes Player of the Championship, Tommaso Menoncello. Nobody’s breaking up that partnership, whereas Wales’ midfield has not only been unsettled by the injury to Owen Watkin, but the fact that Gloucester's Max Llewellyn, the in-form Welsh centre right now, wasn’t selected in the squad for the tournament.
Dan Biggar has been quoted frequently this week after saying this is Wales’ biggest game in 20 years. That’s subjective and I think the Grand Slam matches and two World Cup semi-finals might have something to say about that. I think it’s probably one of the biggest games for the coaching staff more than anything. I really feel for the boys in the squad because when you’re in camp, you know how much pressure you’re under anyway. But when you’re off the back of 13 losses, that pressure just builds and all you want to do is get the monkey off your back so you can go back to focusing on trying to improve and play rugby.
I hope the Welsh boys can get a win this weekend - and think they will - because, I know as well as anyone, your international career can be very short. You want to look back with fond memories on it and success makes that much easier, whereas there are many players in there who have yet to experience winning in a Wales jersey.
Italy v Wales, Saturday 8th February, 14:15 GMT, Stadio Olimpico.
