There's a special kind of honesty that only arrives after a 43-0 hiding, and Steve Tandy found it at the podium in Durban. "It shows how far we have got to go," said the former flanker, which is coach-speak for standing over the wreckage of your own car and calmly telling the insurance man that yes, it appears to be a write-off. No spin, no excuses, just a man counting seven tries by seven different Boks and doing the maths out loud.
"Painful, but take the learnings"
"These experiences are painful, but ultimately we've got to take the learnings from them," Tandy added, which is the bravest sentence in sport — the one you say when the alternative is screaming into a towel. He's not wrong about the accuracy and discipline it takes against South Africa; the trouble is you only find that out by getting fed to them first, live on television, in a cauldron that wanted blood.
The grim silver lining
And here's the darkest comfort in world rugby: 43-0 was progress. Back in November in Cardiff, an even more threadbare Wales shipped 73-0 to these same Springboks. So the Welsh can fly home clutching the fact that they were only beaten by 43 this time, which is like celebrating that the shark only took one leg. Improvement is improvement, boys. Frame it. Whisper it. Don't let the Boks hear you calling it a win.
Wiese, Reinach, Kriel, Williams, Jantjies, Arendse and de Villiers all crossed, the collection plate passed round a squad that barely broke sweat. Wales, stripped of their captain, patched with tape and prayer, held the scoreline to two figures and called it a foundation. Tandy will take the learnings; the rest of Wales will take the paracetamol. It's a long road back, and it starts, as these things always do, at rock bottom with a coach telling the truth.