Four days after the humiliation of seeing his top team beaten out of sight by England’s second string at the Millennium Stadium, Wales Coach Steve Hansen saw a young Wales side, containing six of the 2002-2003 season’s Grand Slam winning Wales U21 team, finally restore some pride. Wales fans had been forced to wait 10 months and 12 matches for a win, the last triumph coming against Canada the previous autumn, way back in November 2002.
Recalled wing Shane Williams ran in two tries and had the honour of scoring the first and last of the night. He popped over after only three minutes for the his first, to help set-up a 30-8 interval lead for the home side, and then capped a solid performance with his second in the seventh minute of injury time.
Full back Gavin Henson helped himself to 24 points on the night with a perfect 10 out of 10 goalkicking display. Other tries came from No.8 Alix Popham and new scrum-half Michael Phillips. After the break, Wales ran in three more tries with Nathan Brew following in Phillips’s footsteps with a debut try before back row man Gavin Thomas and Williams rounded off proceedings.
Romania, who had been heavily beaten in France the previous week, were temporarily reduced to thirteen men in the second half when prop Petru Balan, who crashed over for their seventh minute try, was sent to the sin bin six minutes after the break and then hooker Marius Tincu followed seven minutes later for a stamping incident. Full back Danut Dumbrava provided the visitors with their only other points with a first half penalty.
