A massive win for Wales and, make no bones about it, a massive setback for England and Eddie Jones. People can talk all they like about how little relevance this has to the World Cup later in the year but this mattered, it really mattered.
England got turned over partly because every team raises their game against them and they couldn’t handle it.
I just wonder if the main coaches, an Australian and a New Zealander, have a proper grasp of this. Every team ups it when they play England — you have just got to live with it.
Wales raised their game against England, like every team, and the visitors could not handle it
Eddie Jones may not fully understand the rivalry but Warren Gatland got Wales firing
First of all, hats off to Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards, who got a Welsh team firing after two uninspiring wins in the opening rounds and had done their homework on England, and hats off to Dan Biggar, who was a superstar when he came on as a replacement in the second half for Wales and everything he touched turned to gold.
I am in shock. England just seemed to stop playing in the second half and, as I have said previously, whichever side lost this game would find it hard to bounce back.
England have Italy and Scotland at home to come, and four warm-up games before the World Cup. They have never lost to Italy in the Six Nations and have not lost to Scotland at Twickenham since 1983 — this was the crunch game in red in the diary and England came up short.
The pressure will come on Eddie and assistant John Mitchell because England just played too defensively. The ball hardly got past nine and 10, we just kicked the ball to death, it was like the old days.
These are the sort of games you must win if you are going to be in the frame for World Cups, but England blew this. In 2003 we played Wales in a quarter-final in Brisbane and were under the cosh but somehow came through.
This side were under the cosh and didn’t, and I wouldn’t fancy coaching a side against Wales in a big knock-out game now.
England did not threaten the Welsh line in attack, apart from Tom Curry’s first-half try
We just seemed to get in a street fight and Wales are a tough outfit. They have got a scrum and good goal kickers but England did not change the way they played. They didn’t threaten the Welsh line, apart from Tom Curry’s try.
Only Wales can win the Grand Slam now and England will be kicking themselves, especially when they look at the clips of the second half.
After kicking Ireland and France to death, but importantly scoring tries off kicks against France, their kicking game went to pot and the Welsh back three — Liam Williams, George North and Josh Adams — were more than up to coping with it.
Our kicking game was awful. It was instructional that Wales’s winning try came from a good kick but England were not at the races after the break.
We hardly saw the England midfield, Manu Tuilagi and Henry Slade, and this is going to be an incredibly hard loss for Eddie and his side to get over. On the plus side Curry had an unbelievable game and stood comparison with the much-vaunted Welsh back row. He is still only 20 and with Sam Underhill around we now have two genuine open sides to take to Japan.
Curry had an unbelievable game and stood in comparison with the Welsh back row
What England don’t have to take to the World Cup is a win over Wales ahead of the tournament and that is a big blank.
Wales deserved to win, but England had their chances. They could almost have put the game to bed by half-way. England were 10-3 up at the break after a brutal first 40 but that should have been 13-3.
All the chat was that the next score after the break would be vital but Eddie Jones’s side had already had a clear drop goal chance but didn’t take it.
That would have been the next score. Drop goals are not just reserved for winning World Cup finals like Joel Stransky in 1995, or Jonny Wilkinson in 2003, they are legitimate methods of building the score and that was not too clever from the English.
There would have been nothing more dispiriting for the Welsh than to go down the tunnel two scores down. Guess what? Wales scored next when Gareth Anscombe popped over a penalty in the 52nd minute and it was game on. Then Anscombe scored another.
Then England went to sleep and it is hard to put into words what a huge win this was for Wales. They are pumped up now and England’s pool opponents in Japan will be eyeing them up.
The victory is huge for Wales and captain Alun Wyn Jones ahead of the World Cup
This match should have been played last week though, England should have been hosting Italy this weekend and Scotland the weekend after and the Six Nations should abolish the fallow weeks in the tournament.
If the northern hemisphere teams are really serious about winning the World Cup then the competition should replicate what is going to happen in Japan later this year. To win that tournament you have to play every week and having a two-week break is not what the World Cup is all about — they are missing a trick.
Gatland and Jones have both mentioned the tournament during this Six Nations, why not give them the chance to play in as close a competition as possible to prepare for it?
They seem to want to spread it out but teams need to get used to playing Saturday, Saturday, Saturday and picking up the odd knock like you do in the World Cup.
Plus clubs are playing in the Premiership and Pro14 without their top players so I would get it down to five weeks and do it as a block – but commercially it doesn’t suit. Let’s hope Saturday’s match in Cardiff doesn’t mimic England’s World Cup.
Organisers should consider removing fallow weeks from the tournament so it last five weeks
