-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)
For once, Ben Thomas is doing an interview this season where the subject is not the number on his back.
“Not yet, at least”, he laughs, knowing that question is never too far away.
Sat on some tackle bags in the far corner of Wales’ training barn at their Vale Resort HQ, that question thankfully never arrives. Instead, with a laptop to his right, the Cardiff playmaker sits there, watching himself on the small screen.
Only a few weeks ago, Warren Gatland hailed Thomas as the “best back in Wales”. It’s a tag that has seen him garner a fair bit of stick from his team-mates at the Arms Park.
But it’s warranted. After a strong season last year, Thomas found himself starting at fly-half in both Tests in Australia this summer. Back in his preferred position of centre for the Blue and Blacks, he’s carried on this season where he left off – with some more impressive performances that have certainly caught the eye of more than just Gatland.
Quite where he’ll feature for Wales this autumn remains to be seen, with Gareth Anscombe back in the squad and greater depth in terms of midfield options. But the 25-year-old would be well within his right to believe he has a big part to play this month as Wales look to turn their fortunes around.
And so, back to that laptop on his right, stationed on some makeshift training kit acting as a table. As the clips roll, like a ‘best of’ compilation from Thomas’ first starts in the red jersey, it’s all in aid of finding out exactly what goes through the mind of the ‘best back in Wales’ in the heat of Test match rugby.
Playing to space and not waiting for the ‘perfect picture’
Starting in Sydney back in July, Wales headed down under looking for a first win over the Wallabies on Australia soil since 1969. After a wooden spoon in the Six Nations, the pressure is on for Gatland’s team to find a first victory of 2024.
In truth, Wales had been caught between identities earlier in the year – with a wish to play running rugby perhaps not suited to how Wales have often been successful in recent years. However, with the financial hardships of recent years bringing about a reliance on greenhorn talent, the ability to play a better structured game in the Six Nations is perhaps compromised.
In Australia, signs of that identity start to form. It’s not perfect – spoiler alert: they still lose both Tests – but early in the second-half of the first Test, perhaps the prototype of what Wales’ attacking game should be about comes to the fore. There’s more detail on that in our Substack newsletter at the time, going over that particular attacking set as well as thoughts from both the Australian and Welsh camps.
Essentially, Wales go to the air with a box-kick from their own 22, kicking to compete. They do so successfully, winning the aerial battle and looking immediately to play to space.
It’s there that we first look at what Thomas, as the inhabitant of that most famous of Welsh rugby jerseys, is thinking…
“Any time you can get the ball off transition, there’s going to be a bit of a disorganised space in front of you,” he explains. “First of all, it’s about getting the ball in my hands. Then I can make a decision from there.
“The more passes you go through to get to 10, the more pictures change and space starts to close up. I’m scanning to see where the space is. Once I see it’s out wide, it’s getting it into my hands and unlocking some of those wide channels.
Waving his hands in the air, Thomas calls for the ball. With Rio Dyer running a support line behind him across field, the fly-half knows that getting the pass away earlier is the best way of isolating Australia’s edge.
“It’s not perfect shape, but it won’t be off transition like that. It’s more that we’ve got some dangerous runners so we don’t want to take up too much time and space on the inside.
“The sooner we can get the ball in their hands and get them running, the better. Sometimes it’s just about giving our wingers the ball and letting them take on defenders.
“To a certain extent, it’s easy to wait for a perfect picture, like a four-v-two or a five-v-three overlap. But with the athletes we’ve got out wide, sometimes it’s just about taking a three-v-three and letting these people beat people. They’re brilliant players at beating defenders so the more we can put them in those situations, the better.”
Kicking on the front-foot and knowing when to apply pressure
The sense of identity in Wales’ play is perhaps clearer in the next clip. From a lineout, Wales move the ball into midfield – with the ball going from fly-half to centre to back-row.
Last year, that caused all sorts of problems in Lyon – with the Wallabies torn to shreds thanks to Nick Tompkins’ inside ball to Jac Morgan. This time, Aaron Wainwright carries outside Owen Watkin – with the Wallabies’ defending it better than Eddie Jones’ charges managed in France a year ago.
So what are Wales looking to get out of those starter plays?
“The ideal there is we get a good dent off the first carry and hopefully compromise their fold. Australia defended that pretty well. They had some good numbers around the corner. So for us, it’s about trying to get to that edge and try regather some shape or put some pressure back onto them.”
In terms of pressure, that comes from the form of Thomas kicking to the backfield from a pull-back pass from Dewi Lake. Remarkably, as the clip plays, Thomas knows exactly what he’s about to do.
It’s clear this is a tactical shift with Wales as the year progresses, kicking early but only while going forward. That’s perhaps rarely been the case in recent times, with Wales finding themselves caught between ideologies and kicking off the back-foot as a result.
Australia’s back-field pendulum is already in motion, with scrum-half Jake Gordon starting to move up as Wales look set to keep the ball in hand, forcing him to back-track.
“Once we got to that first edge, we’ve had two cracks at them here and haven’t got an awful lot from it. The focus there is probably trying to kick more on our terms, rather than slowing ball down, setting up a box-kick and letting their back-field get organised.
“The more we can kick on the front-foot in our normal phase play structure, the better it will be to find some space back there. We were able to find some grass back there and the ball can bounce anywhere, can’t it?
“It’s not exactly giving up on the attacking set. It’s putting some pressure on them and then we’ll get the ball back in a better position to launch another attack.”
‘It’s about how early – or in that case, not so early – I want the ball’
Moving into the second Test in Melbourne, Wales went about righting the wrongs of the week before. From the off, Wales set about holding onto the ball a little more – with one early passage seeing them go through the phases in the Australian half from a turnover.
Having been ready to cover the backfield when Australia were looking to kick, Thomas stays detached for most of the phase play – allowing Cameron Winnett to stand it at first-receiver. But, as Wales work across from one edge to another, Thomas steps in as a second receiver outside Rio Dyer.
Taking the pass from the wing, Thomas does well to get the ball quickly to Tommy Reffell outside him in the face of an onrushing Australian defender, allowing Reffell to take on a defender forced to tread water with their edge exposed. Although, looking at it again, was it a bit of a hospital pass from Thomas’ team-mate?
“It was a bit! But again, it’s everyone knowing our systems and having trust in each other, whether that’s Cam in at first-receiver or Rio. We all know what we’re trying to achieve with our attack. It’s just about executing.
“The mentality for the whole of this Test, particularly the second-half, was try put them under a bit of pressure with ball in hand in their own half.
“I think first Test, we came away feeling a bit underwhelmed with ourselves and how few shots we fired. That was the focus here.”
As well as holding his feet nicely to take the pass and get the ball away, Thomas is also constantly communicating with his team-mate to link play.
“It’s probably a mixture of a bit of talk to Rio, about how early – or in that case, not so early – I want the ball. It’s about holding the space because we know the outside space is there. We know they’re going to try shut that door quite quickly so we’ve almost got to let the defence do the work in that scenario.”
Squaring up and being the sum of their parts
That early intent with ball in hand almost leads to an early score for Wales. Working the ball to one edge, Thomas squares up to keep some defenders outside of him invested.
Then, as they work back, Thomas just keeps the shape progressing with a couple of phases working back, setting up Aaron Wainwright to carry outside him.
Out of context, any of those phases don’t necessarily look like much in isolation. The final carry from Wainwright doesn’t see the No. 8 bursting onto the ball at pace, instead carrying almost from a standing start and looking to run at the Wallabies’ edge defender.
“Broken down, that simply does not (look like much). It’s probably about what we’re trying to achieve in those three or four phases. We’ve gone to the right edge first.
“It’s about trying to set up one or two quick rucks coming back the other way. Then, as a backline, race around the corner and try steal a few numbers from the opposition.”
All of those phases do the trick, with Wales’ backline able to race around, as Thomas says, with quick hands nearly putting James Botham over in the corner. As first-receiver, Thomas knows his job starts by carrying hard to the line.
“It’s making sure I fix my defender but also trying to make a read on what they’re doing defensively. Australia were pretty passive on a lot of their edges. So it’s about trying to commit some defenders, but also doing a bit of preservation of space on the outside.
“We knew that space was there, but the way they defended, if we tried to get the ball there early, it would be a hard day for us. We knew we had to do a job at fixing defenders on the inside and then ultimately picking the right options.
“That’s pretty much on me, or whoever is ball-playing. It’s a late decision so it would be tough for anyone else to communicate. You’ve got to see what the defender is doing and back your decision.”
Putting it all together
All of Wales’ attacking intent culminates with a well-worked try for Liam Williams, with Gatland’s side displaying some patient build-up in the Wallabies’ red-zone.
After their driving maul gets a little messy, Wales rebuild through some phases to the right edge, with Thomas flitting between the pull-back option behind a bank of three forwards and then first-receiver from phase to phase.
One of his former team-mates at Cardiff speaks of how often Thomas, like any good playmaker, gets into first-receiver, allowing him to make decisions on structure and phase.
“They’re set in that we’ve got our general patterns, but like most teams, it’s on us to pick what option we use. In that situation, I felt it was best for us to spend some time with ball in hand. We hadn’t launched too many attacks against Australia or fired too many shots.
“So this period was about trying to keep the ball for a few phases and put them under some pressure that way. We’d gone aerial on them a fair bit. It was time to put some pressure on with ball in hand.”
It results in Thomas putting Taine Plumtree through a gap, carrying the ball to the line hard and forcing the Australian defence to bite onto him, giving the Scarlets back-row a soft shoulder to run at.
“It was probably a message to our whole team going into this game, making sure we’re playing late to the line and making late decisions. They were sliding off a bit defensively and allowing us to play, knowing they’d recover. It was about trying to turn some defenders in and play as late as possible.”
Getting close to the line, Thomas sits close to the ruck – giving orders as his Wales team-mates realise where the space is
“I could hear Cam and Sanj outside me screaming. I thought this ball wasn’t coming out so I’d have to come in. Thankfully Dafydd (Jenkins) heard us and he was able to do his scrum-half impression. I was about half a second off (from waving my arms).”
Thankfully, the pass comes and Thomas and Winnett combine to put Liam Williams over for a well-worked try. As the clips come to an end, the question is raised over how Thomas would rate his performance.
The same question was put to him earlier in the year at a Cardiff press conference, when he discussed watching back his performances over the summer. He stopped short of assessing himself out of 10 that time.
And, having spent the last 20 minutes highlighting the qualities of others over himself in the numerous clips, the answer now won’t exactly shock you.
“They’re highlights, there’s plenty of lowlights as well!”
More of the interview with Ben Thomas, including some added clips of him in action for Cardiff as well as video of the interview, can be viewed exclusively on the Inside Welsh Rugby Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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