Gareth Bale bangs drum for Wales but he cannot make music alone

Winger gives his all but is lacking support against England

Gareth Bale shows his dejection after England take the lead in Lens (Getty)

When it was over he stooped, hands on knees, staring implacably at the turf and it was the first time in weeks that we have seen Gareth Bale display anything less than a spirit of self-expression and self-possession.

He has been the one who has seen to it that Wales have walked tall in this country - and in ways that will not be immediately obvious to those reading his words of mischief, accusing England of a lack of heart and humour. “Any idea if you’ll be playing central again,” Bale was asked a few days ago by one of the English journalists with the Wales press corps. He touched the side of his nose, grinning. “There you go again. You English - always wanting to know our secrets.”

He has not only been the player who stands on another parallel to those others in the Wales side but the one intent on putting some spectacle into the nation’s campaign and letting the continent know all about this little country he loves, at these championships. On more than one occasion these past few weeks, those chronicling Wales’ campaign have been told that "Gareth will talk" and when, having been ushered into a side room, found him so intent on turning the screw on the English that they can barely stop him talking. The atmosphere walking out of those gatherings has been electrifying because the copy has been gold-dust.

In the final reckoning, though, one man does not make a team and that was evident from the moment the occasion finally began. For all that Bale might create, calamity was a clear and present danger with a defence of human failings. The game was a few seconds old when Ashley Williams had delivered possession straight to Harry Kane. Williams and James Chester’s delivery out of defence had failed three times before the game was a quarter of an hour old. Williams and his Swansea team-mate Neil Taylor both lumped the ball for touch. Ben Davies handled it, awkwardly, as he leapt up to head with Kane. You sensed that anxiety would be lurking as the afternoon wore on. It turned out to be something much worse than that.

For an hour, the hope of something to transcend expectation and bookmakers’ odds was real and manifest. The sense that Bale’s stage was set was present in the body language, which seemed to give Wales a head start. Bale, Joe Allen and Aaron Ramsey walked the sun-kissed turf of Stade Bollaert-Delelis grinning and smiling. The English players looked far more serious and buttoned up about the task in hand. To lose was to fail for England, though there seemed no such concept as non-achievement for Wales. To win was one thing but to compete was just as valuable. “Football’s coming home,” England’s fans sang. “England’s going home,” countered the Welsh.

The problem when the Uefa ‘countdown’, had concluded and England stood before them was actually getting Bale on the ball. He picked Wayne Rooney’s pocket on one occasion and slid a ball under Danny Rose’s tackle down the England right to get beyond the defence but no more. The Welsh strategy was functional – find Bale – and the long balls being despatched at the first available opportunity required more than the artisans of distribution who were at the side’s disposal, such as Williams and Chester. The balls being speared wide right and left for him were being sent with a lot less than pinpoint accuracy. The game was 40 minutes old before Bale was even allowed more than six consecutive touches, to stride through the England midfield and offer the ball right to Neil Taylor. The cross from the Swansea City player was moribund.

Ashley Williams loses his composure as Gary Cahill heads for goal for England in Lens (Getty)

Easy to construct a sense of it all afterwards, perhaps, but there was a wisdom in the languid strides he took in that first period – never chasing down, never screaming his brethren on in the way that Joe Hart had in the tunnel. Operating within himself gave him froideur and presence of mind when he stepped back to strike the free-kick which, from Bridgend to Blaenau Ffestiniog, they will be talking about for many a year to come. To deliver from 35 yards seemed inconceivable as Bale strode back like a rugby union penalty taker but boy did he manage. The delivery and result called right back to mind Cardiff Arms Park, Paul Thorburn, 1986.

It was no less than a personal tragedy that the script he had mentally conjured was not to be. England’s substitutes created the kind of force that a nation of such talents ought to parade. Daniel Sturridge oozed strength, balance and belief in a way that Raheem Sterling didn’t. The hopes and the dreams and the Land of my Fathers could not erase the equations: that Sturridge always had the beating of Chris Gunter and that Williams, colossus of the long Welsh road to this place, might be fallible at some stage. Heading a Sturridge cross straight to Jamie Vardy to score was not how anyone imagined it.

It was a performance from which to take pride, for all that, in a tournament where Wales’ hopes are still very much alive. Bale had recovered himself by the time the interviews arrived. With him in the ranks, the big adventure may yet lie ahead. Yes, he said, Wales still had hope.