When the Wales fly-half Stephen Jones describes Saturday's encounter with Scotland at the Millennium Stadium as massive, he is not being hyperbolic. As his side's longest-serving back, he knows only too well how promise can quickly turn to despair and the men in red have reached a familiar crossroads.
Grand slam champions in 2008 three months after Warren Gatland took over as head coach, Wales have lost three of their last four Six Nations matches. Jones will be hoping history is not about to repeat itself as he played under Graham Henry and Mike Ruddock, whose reigns started brightly but ended in acrimony and early resignation.
"We have to win on Saturday, it is as simple as that," said Jones, a Lion in 2005 and last summer. "We believe in our ability and in the management team. What we have in place is top drawer. It is about us delivering and we have to bounce back from a frustrating defeat at Twickenham, no two ways about it."
Wales won their first five matches under Gatland but since achieving the grand slam, they have a 50% record in 18 matches and they have conceded 30 points in their last two matches, against England and Australia. Past regimes have seen rifts between players and coaches in mid-term and there were also reports that the squad were unhappy Gatland had publicly criticised Alun Wyn Jones for his sin-binning at Twickenham and blaming his trip on Dylan Hartley for the defeat. "We lost against England because we allowed them to feed off our mistakes," Jones said. "We were not as sharp and accurate as we needed to be. If you want to beat the best, you have to deliver your gameplan and we failed to do that.
"Our style of play is different to the likes of England. We want to play open rugby but we have to get on the front foot first. We have brilliant runners and we want to get them in the game early and often but we have to manipulate defences and not make it easy for them by just playing a running game. We have to be clever, which we were not last weekend.
"When we kept the ball against England and injected continuity into our game, we were dangerous. If they had been dominant in every aspect we would have come in this week and wondered where we went from here. There are issues we have to address and it is a massive game for us."
Wales expect Scotland, who have asked for the stadium roof to be kept open, to play a kicking game, as England did, applying pressure and forcing Wales to make mistakes. Jones accepts that at times Wales try to live up too much to their ideal of playing running rugby.
"Variety is the key," Jones said. "The coaches have shown faith in the players and we have to repay them. A feature of our play under Warren has been sharpness combined with accuracy, but they were both lacking against England and Australia. That cannot happen again. We know we are a good side, but we cannot afford to make so many errors.
"Scotland will be tough and they have picked a big backline. Their teams are going well in the Magners League, but there are no excuses this week. We have to deliver. We were all disappointed with the way we played against England and Scotland also have a deadly goal-kicker in Chris Paterson. We cannot afford to give away penalties."
