If all good things must come to an end, what about all bad things?
Wales are currently stuck in the most nightmare of runs, with just three wins from their last 15 games.
There is no obvious sign of things improving dramatically.
Read more: Wales warned over Wooden Spoon and told Italy game has suddenly become 'massive'
They were predictable in the 20-10 defeat against England in the Six Nations, lacking guile and deception, and didn’t help themselves with a questionable kicking strategy.
The lineout wasn’t perfect and they lost the breakdown battle while being shy of creativity in key areas.
Warren Gatland is clearly using this tournament to have a look at players but he’s been unable to eke out results and Italy, Wales’ opponents in Rome a week on Saturday, will hardly be losing sleep about what’s coming their way.
Here are the winners and losers from the game in Cardiff.
WINNERS
Taulupe Faletau
One measure of a rugby player is how he performs in adversity.
The great Terry Holmes famously used to fare well on that count, continually standing tall in poor Wales sides. Not for him wilting when the odds were against his team. For Holmes, adversity invariably proved the cue for him to raise his performance level to even greater heights. Some players can do that. Not many, just a special few.
Faletau is made of similar stuff. There were times in the second half when he seemed to be involved in everything positive that Wales did, whether it was carrying, passing or locking over the ball.
No one is indispensable. But Faletau comes close.
Freddie Steward
Repeatedly sending high kicks towards the 6ft 5in Freddie Steward is akin to sending full tosses the way of Ben Stokes or continually offering volleys to John McEnroe in his prime.
Yet Wales kept launching skyscraping balls to arguably the best kick-receipt player in the world.
What kind of strategy was it?
New Zealand have in the past not so much looked to play on opponents’ weaknesses as neutralise their strengths. Were Wales hoping Steward would suddenly develop butter fingers?
If so, they were to be disappointed as the Leicester Tiger dealt with bomb after bomb. Still they kept raining down, though.
Few found space. Most found Steward.
Naming the England full-back as man of the match, Jonathan Davies said from the BBC commentary box: “He has been absolutely brilliant in the air.”
It was difficult to disagree.
Wayne Pivac
Not really a winner, but he looked a lot more relaxed as a pundit on Saturday than he did when coaching Wales.
He and Warren Gatland have changed positions. Rewind three months and it was Gatland behind the mic commenting on Wales while Pivac was in the Welsh coaching hot seat, carrying with him the stresses and strains of the position.
Now Pivac is in the chap offering comments and Gatland is the man with questions to answer.
And Wales have not kicked on since losing to Australia in Pivac’s final game in charge, a match when they played some scintillating attacking rugby before imploding late on.
The ex-coach could be forgiven a measure of schadenfreude, then, after Wales' third straight defeat since he left.
But he’s bigger than that. Undoubtedly, though, he’ll testify that it’s a lot easier sitting in a comfortable studio saying a few words on what’s going wrong than it is at the sharp end and trying desperately to put things right.
And Gatland would doubtless agree.
LOSERS
Warren Gatland
The job of coaching Wales is undoubtedly a tough one, with Welsh rugby in a mess and the off-pitch problems this week there for everyone to see.
The age-profile of the national squad is also wrong. And Gatland is only three games into his second stint in charge of the team.
But it is an understatement to say his side are not looking in great shape.
They were second best at the breakdown against England — what they would give for Gethin Jenkins to Benjamin Button his way back to the age of 25 and rock up for training this week — and too slow in clearing out opposition players.
Jake Ball did that job superbly back in the day, hitting rucks with the impact of a steam train. If someone hasn't phoned him across continents and asked him if he wants to pick up the threads of his Test career after last week's tweak to the 60-cap rule, then they should have.
Ball is suddenly available and would bring something different to this team.
Wales' kicking game was also dismal against a side who effectively fielded three full-backs. And they were lamentably poor in the opposition 22, seemingly unacquainted with the word ‘clinical’.
It all adds up to a test for Gatland. He is discovering what many coaches have learned before, namely how difficult it is to improve matters once a team are caught in a whirlpool of failure. He is trying to expose young players to Test rugby but the Six Nations is unforgiving and there is a real danger Wales could pick up a wooden spoon.
Will that matter if the team has a decent World Cup after the trials and tribulations of this tournament? That’s for the court of public opinion to decide.
In the meantime, what’s the New Zealander to do?
He can only keep going.
Josh Adams
He’s going through a lean spell at Test level despite playing so well on the club scene. The thinking is he’s a quality player who will come good eventually.
But he made next to no impact on the game against England, missing tackles and failing to fire in attack, and Liam Williams and Rio Dyer are wing options for Gatland to partner Louis Rees-Zammit.
Potentially, if he wants to continue with his young-guns policy in midfield, the coach could even throw a wing jersey to George North with the hope he might do for Wales what Duhan van Der Merwe has been doing for Scotland.
Alex Cuthbert is currently walking around in a moon boot, so there’s uncertainty over him for the Italy game. But Adams will still be a shade anxious ahead of selection.
Wales half-backs
If Wales were to beat England they had to get their kicking game right. Sadly, they were woeful in that respect.
They kept hoofing the ball at a back three that barely dropped a thing, with the full-back Freddie Steward the kind of man you’d want to see waiting below if you were contemplating a leap from a burning building. For the avoidance of doubt, there would be a soft landing.
It didn’t help that Owen Williams made a nervous opening in his first Test start at fly-half, with misdirected kicks that wouldn’t have helped his confidence.
He wasn’t helped by Wales’ inability to generate quality possession. But there was little evidence of Test-quality game management and much the same could be said for Tomos Williams, whose kicking again wasn’t what it could have been.
If there are changes at half-back for the Italy match neither of the incumbents could complain.
Welsh rugby’s powerbrokers
Wales were ordinary against England, but they were not helped by the “horrendous” build-up, as described by Ken Owens.
Mulling over whether to strike or not is no way to prepare for a Six Nations match. That seems a legitimate reason to feel for those involved.
All concerned in the mess that left players contemplating industrial action just days before a huge Six Nations match ought to look at themselves. They have had enough time to sort out the problems that seem to have plagued Welsh rugby since the late Jurassic age.
Instead, there still appear to be sticking points, with Welsh rugby left to contemplate a bleak outlook of reduced regional squads and player departures, with plenty of those who do the playing still said to be unimpressed even by the compromises of last week.
READ NEXT:
Warren Gatland Q&A: We are getting better but we just hurt ourselves
The reasons Wales lost to England amid kicking mess and lack of power
England star taken aback by poor Cardiff atmosphere as incredulous Jiffy loses it
Grinning Wayne Pivac digs back at Warren Gatland in live Wales v England appearance
