Dan's the Man

The Dragons flanker Dan Lydiate turned in another man of the match performance as Wales closed out St Andre's stilted French side at the Millenium. The French coach had succeeded in bringing some rain down on Gatland's parade, but his controversial insistence on leaving the roof off was ultimately just another expression of his limited thinking at work here.
 In the second half, with the French forwards at last gaining a foothold in Welsh territory, Beauxis chose to go for a drop goal. He scuffed it wide - his dreadful game in a microcosm - and we knew the game was won. The final few minutes, with only a converted try between the sides, should have been hushed, with fingernails gnawed to a bloodied pulp. Instead, such was the superiority of the Welsh side, each man confident in possession, and sure of their technique, that a rendition of ”Hymns and Arias” grew and grew, the sound tumbling down from the terraces high up then rolling out over the grass. The players sucked it in, and we all realised that St Andre had done the whole of Cardiff a favour, because with the roof off the sound was able to spill out onto St Mary's Street, away across the Taff, out over Bute Park, and they could all stop worrying. The old Max Boyce classic only gets a proper airing when the boys in red are winning. When the final whistle blew, the stadium camera picked out Gerald Davies as he wiped away a tear. Perhaps for his old mate The Swerve. How he'd have loved that game. And the new Welsh legends can reflect on the fact that colleagues like Chopper Lydiate wouldn't have been out of place in that team of the 1970's.
And that, for any Welsh rugby fan, is what this Grand Slam is all about. Now this team can stop looking back over its shoulder, and head towards its own future.