Maybe the most successful Wales positional switch of all came after Clive Rowlands buckled up his seat-belt and sat next to Gerald Davies on a flight from Wellington to Auckland more than 50 years ago.
“Fancy a salted peanut, Ger?” the Wales head coach at the time may or may not have said. The trip lasted barely an hour, but in that time Rowlands managed to persuade his moustachioed travelling companion to make the move from centre, from where he had already won 12 Wales caps, to wing.
The words he used were in fact not altogether super-sweet to a man who evidently wasn’t entirely convinced about the merits of what was being proposed. “He might just as well have wielded a knuckle duster as talk as he did with honey on his tongue,” Davies later recalled, tongue no doubt in cheek. “There was hardly any point in carrying on with my protests.” So the deal was done.
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Davies had scored only two tries at that point in his Test career. He would go on to play 34 more times for Wales, all on the right wing, and claim 18 more touchdowns, in the process confirming himself as an all-time great player.
It is too early to say what will become of Louis Rees-Zammit’s move in the Wales back division, which saw him feature at full-back instead of on the wing against Argentina on Saturday.
Will it prove just a one-off, to help Wales over an injury situation which has denied them the services of their two main No. 15s in Leigh Halfpenny and Liam Williams? Or will Rees-Zammit slot in at the back every now and then for his country? Or will the coaches look to develop him fully as their last line of defence? Whatever, the experiment against the Pumas was widely judged to have been a success.
Certainly, Rees-Zammit took to it as if to the manner born, delighting the crowd by declining to lump his first touch of the ball upfield. Instead, he glided through a gap, touched on the accelerator and made 30 metres before the Argentine defence properly knew what was happening.
Later, deep in the bowels of the Principality Stadium, he was asked whether he’d like to make the switch a permanent arrangement. He didn’t rule it out. Or rule it in. But he stressed he would figure at 15 if the coaches wanted him to.
“I can play there, and I will play there if needed," he said. "I am a winger, but I can play there as well. I’ll play wherever they pick me. So long as I can help the team, whether that’s in attack or defence, I’ll try my best.”
There were no major glitches against the Pumas. One high ball may have been a shade misjudged, but Rees-Zammit approached everything with confidence and was willing to back himself. That early dash through the Pumas ranks seemed a statement of intent from the 21-year-old, as if to spell out: “This is what I do. I may have a different number on my back but I’m still a running threat. Take your eyes off me at your peril.” But there was also pragmatism to adapt when further gaps failed to materialise.
“I enjoyed it at full-back,” he said. “It was very good. I’ll play wherever the gaffer tells me to play, so long as I can help the team that’s all that matters. If the space comes, I’ll make that decision over whether to run. But against a team like Argentina they don’t give you that much space so you have to try and play a bit of ping-pong with them and see who crumbles first.
“Early in the first half we had some space and it looked like it might be one of those days when we could run, but they denied us very well and then you just have to stick in the kicking battle. You have to see who breaks first and take the opportunities.”
Having previously played just twice at No. 15 in his senior career, he had spent a lot of the build-up to the Argentina game in the company of Leigh Halfpenny, discussing the finer points of full-back play and tapping into the experience and knowledge of a player who made his Test debut 15 years ago.
“All week me and Leigh were sat on the computers, doing loads of analysis," Rees-Zammit said. "I needed to know everything and he is the man to ask. He gave me massive confidence.
"The difference is back field. You are constantly in the back field and with the kicking into the 22 rule now you can’t afford to let the opposition in your half. So, you are covering ground as opposed to kick chasing. Leigh Halfpenny has probably been the best for a long time now. It’s great to learn from him and the whole week he was helping me massively.”
There were no nerves about his new role. “No, not really,” said the Gloucester player. “Me and Pence, we had looked through everything and I felt confident going into the game. I was aware of their threats and of getting myself into position quickly so they weren’t going to be allowed opportunities. You do get more space because there is a lot of kicking these days, so there are kick battles which you have to stay in, but when the opportunity does come, my eyes light up.”
A big motivator for the Wales players was to respond to the questions over their physicality which arose after the pounding they had taken from New Zealand. “We definitely talked about it," he said. "We lost by 30 points. It wasn’t great and we had massive heat on us. So, we had to put it right this week.
"I think the boys stood up well and really put in a defensive performance that we can be proud of. They were in our 22 a lot and we went long phases where we stuck in there and we managed to win the ball back a fair few times. Our physicality just wasn’t good enough against New Zealand and we had to put that right.”
There were also words of praise for fellow young gun in the Wales back line, Rio Dyer.
“Rio is an outstanding player,” said Rees-Zammit. “His attacking is outstanding. Defenders are definitely worried about him and defensively he is brilliant as well. He is getting used to things because it’s a big step from club rugby to international rugby, but he’s getting to grips with it and he’s playing amazingly well.”
With that he was gone, the mixed zone having been navigated with the minimum fuss, just as his full-back brief had been earlier. It takes a lot to faze him.
Some positional experiments don't work. This one was encouraging. Wayne Pivac will be pleased.
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