World Cup Country Profiles - Wales

Although everyone knows it, it bears repeating: Wales invented singing, phlegm, Tom Jones, singing with phlegm and Barry John, in that order.

The Singing

One of the must-do experiences of world rugby, nay world sport, is to be at the Millennium Stadium (Stadiwm y Mileniwm, nee Cardiff Arms Park the National Stadium) for a Wales v New Zealand rugby match. (Update: thanks Miramar Michael; Cardiff Arms Park is still with us; the Dropkicks' lack of research skills strikes again!) With any luck, Byron Kelleher won't be part of the haka, but even he at his patriotic worst wouldn't be able to be noticed above the strains of "Bread of Heaven", which will be emanating from 80,000 Welsh mouths and moving air at pressures usually reserved for jumbo jets and jackhammers.

The Phlegm

When in Wales, or around Welshmen, always keep an umbrella handy, especially if the locals, or other said Welshmen, insist on conversing in their mother tongue. You just try saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch without needing to rehydrate halfway through. A towel would not go astray either. Had the Earth not been destroyed by the Vogon Constructor Fleet, its odds on that Douglas Adams would have mentioned the humble towel in just such a phlegm-negating capacity.

Tom Jones

Well, he's just a sex-bomb, boyo.

Singing with Phlegm

Take a towel with you to the Millennium Stadium.

Barry John

Ah, here we go. Actually, I could have replaced Barry John with JPR Williams, or Gareth Edwards, Mervyn Davies, Phil Bennett. Heck, any one of the team from the Golden Age in the 1970s. Six Five Nations trophies. Grand Slams. Triple Crowns. The glory years. The years Wales would dearly love to be repeated.

If there is any country even remotely like New Zealand when it comes to the spirituality of rugby, it is Wales. Some say it is the sheep. Some say it is the effect of being the neighbour of a bigger country that tends to ignore you, or at least pats you on the head patronisingly whenever you produce your latest seaside crayon masterpiece with birds that look like m's. Some say it is the green rolling hills. Some say it's Graham Henry, the Great Redeemer. No one says it's the coal mines. And it's definitely not the singing. (If there's one thing a group of New Zealand supporters can do, it's suck the sound out of the opposing supporters. We're so un-noisy we actively consume sound waves.)

Whatever the reason for our relative sameness, rugby has merely reinforced the notion. We both found we had a want for the game, and we both had the physical and mental attributes to command fear in the opposition's eyes. Had the World Cup been invented 80 years ago, the three countries most engraved upon the trophy would be New Zealand, South Africa and Wales. Wales used to be that good.

I say "used to" because, although the All Blacks still make other teams yearn to be elsewhere when playing them, the Welsh have spent the last 25 years working out how best to position themselves on their downward slide. It is doubtful that the average Welsh fan looks back at the last couple of decades with much nostalgia. Sure, there were some high points: Five Nations' crowns in 1988 and 1994 and a Six Nations' crown in 2005. And then there were 10 wins in a row in the late 1990s: a resurgence that never really caught on. But in the main, Wales has suffered terribly at the hands of the Big Five nations, and has found its pride battered as it has struggled against supposed minnows.

Will the class of '07 be able to reverse the downward slide? Not on the Welsh team's results so far this year. Equal bottom of the Six Nations with Scotland. Below Italy. Ouch. A loss to Italy. Double ouch. A loss to Scotland. Oof. A record loss to England in a warm-up match, and although this was a Welsh team without many of its top players, it can only have been psychologically damaging. Thok. Wales also had two losses on the road in Australia: one they could perhaps have won with an ounce more luck, but in the other they got thumped. Kapow. One positive has been their most recent win over Argentina, 27-20. Is this the beginning of yet another Welsh rennaisance, or was it just a game they were lucky to win and life will go on as it has these past 25 years?

Wales are in Pool B, and start their campaign against the Canadians at Stade la Beaujoire on Sunday 9 September. They then travel back home to Cardiff and the Millennium Stadium to face Australia on Saturday 15 September. They then travel precisely nowhere to play Japan on Thursday 20 September. Their final pool match is against Fiji, back at Stade la Beaujoire on Saturday 29 September. It's hard not to see them finishing second in that pool and heading off to Marseille and playing (and probably getting thumped by) South Africa in the third quarterfinal.