Robert Howley taking Wales in a significantly different direction

Wales are not masters of disguise, but selling a profound shift in emphasis in their selection for the team to face Argentina in Cardiff on Saturday as a defensive move is subterfuge.

They have conceded 26 tries in their past five Tests, which all resulted in defeat, and their predictable attacking game has not been able to compensate. By dropping the centre Jamie Roberts and the flanker Dan Lydiate, two players who were central figures in Wales's power game that took them to the World Cup semi-final in 2011 and a grand slam five months later, Wales's interim head coach Robert Howley, standing in for Warren Gatland, has taken a significant change in direction.

Wales’s style became known as Warrenball, a pejorative term they felt was simplistic. Roberts, an imposing midfielder with the height and weight of a second row not too many years ago, was central to it, storming his way over the gainline and taking out defenders. There was no subtlety and no desire to unlock his creative ability because it worked, at least against European sides.

The 2011 World Cup quarter-final against Ireland in Wellington showed how crucial Roberts and Lydiate were to the strategy, the former running hard straight lines, making particular progress from top of the line-out ball when he was able to get into his stride, and the latter tackling ball-carriers low and felling them before they could make ground. Lydiate Lydiate's strength is seen as more of a weakness now with sides more prepared to off-load. Defence is his forte, rather than ball-carrying and passing, and as Wales look for multidimensional players as the international game speeds up and slowing down opposition ball at the breakdown becomes more hazardous, he and Roberts, having done all that was asked and expected of them, are victims of evolution.

While Howley pointed to the first half against Australia last weekend, when Wales had little ball and even less territory, as the trigger for change, but events in Chicago a few hours later also had an influence. Ireland defeated New Zealand for the first time by taking the game to them rather than looking to grind them down and pointing the way for the Lions next year, in marked contrast to how the tourists won the series in Australia in 2013, Warrenball’s acme.

By replacing Roberts with Scott Williams, who started at 13 against Australia in the absence of Jonathan Davies, who is fit again, Wales will lose little physically in defence but they will have a midfielder with a softer touch in attack. The change will ask questions of the outside-half Dan Biggar, who with Roberts outside him rarely attacked the line, but stood deeper and when not kicking the ball, gave it to Roberts or a forward to charge up.

If Wales's attacking game is to bloom, Biggar needs to offer more of a running threat and hold a defender or two. Howley has made other tweaks with Liam Williams returning on the wing rather than at full-back from where he counter-attacked so productively in the first Test against New Zealand last June,, Sam Warburton replacing Lydiate to give Wales two open-side flankers against opponents who take risks in their own half, and at tight-head prop Tomas Francis runs with the ball more than Samson Lee.

Howley said it was a team for Argentina, implying a step back may be taken at the end of the month when South Africa are in Cardiff, but it is also about retaining the physical edge Wales have had for the past eight years while adding to it. It does not mean that Wales will look to take on Argentina at their own game but seize the moment by playing what is in front of them.

Warburton’s return, together with that of the second row Alun Wyn Jones, will add to the leadership of the side that was so lacking a week ago. As the game slipped from them and little worked, the players needed the refuge of the dressing room at the interval to work out how to solve problems.

Argentina should be looking to come up with the unexpected against a side that does not live off its wits, but they are wedded to the free-flowing style introduced by their head coach Daniel Hourcade three years ago.

(Guardian Service)