SIX NATIONS 2024
Wales.................................. 21pts
Tries: Dee 64, Rowlands 79, Grady 80+2
Conversions: Costelow 64, Lloyd 80, 80+2
Italy.................................... 24pts
Tries: Ioane 20, Pani 46, Conversions: Garbisi 47
Penalties: Garbisi 6, 14, 71; Page-Relo 73
WHEN the anguish over the first Welsh whitewash in a generation dies down, George North will be entitled to ask a rhetorical question: “What did I do to deserve this?”
More poignantly still, he will wonder why, after all those glory days of World Cups, Lions tours and Grand Slams, the gods sitting in conclave on Mount Olympus decreed that they would saddle him with a role from history as honourable as it was utterly hopeless.
In the best of all Welsh worlds, Boy George would have been granted one last stampede in a winning cause. Instead he found himself cast in a 21st century Six Nations version of The Boy On The Burning Deck.
Like the eponymous hero of the ageless poem inspired by the Battle of the Nile during the Anglo-French war of three centuries ago, North had been given early notice that his final voyage through the tempests of Test rugby was not going to end well. Truth to tell, it could hardly have been much worse.
The tears he shed during the anthem stemmed from patriotic pride and the knowledge that this would be the last time. All too soon, he would be confronted by another reality, that Wales were about to have the stuffing knocked out of them by superior opponents.
The latest in a distinguished list of retirees will not need to watch the nastiest of video nasties to be reminded of the exact moment when he and the rest of the crew sensed their stricken boat would finish up impaled on the rocks.
Italy had been cruising in such calm waters from the start that they had reason to feel shortchanged by nothing more than Paolo Garbisi’s two penalties. Monty Ioane changed that, coming off his blindside wing to glide through a gap between North and another back in a defence pummelled into submission.
North turned round, his face etched in despair, one arm flung out in dejection, as if asking everyone in general and nobody in particular how and why it had been allowed to happen. To be fair, Garbisi contrived to keep Wales within striking distance.
Two points squandered through the missed conversion, Italy’s otherwise accomplished stand-off followed up with such a horribly shanked crosskick that he might have squandered seven more. It caused enough momentary chaos for North to raise hopes with what turned out to be one last stampeding run.
Italy repaired the damage and reimposed their comm
