Old friends show no mercy on Gareth Anscombe’s Wales return | Andy Bull

Fly-half’s first appearance for his country since serious injury more than two years ago is soured by heavy defeat

Have the old songs ever sounded so sweet or been sung so loud? After 18 months of Test matches played in front of piped-in crowds, they finally had a full house at the Principality, almost 80,000 in, and 80 minutes against the All Blacks ahead.

In those first few moments, in the silence that fell for the haka and the first swell of Cwm Rhondda that followed, all the worries, whys, and wherefores about Wales’s missing players, the wrangle between clubs and countries, and what it all means about the state of the international game, slipped out of mind. For the minute, at least, none of it seemed to matter so much.