Expert Witness: Peter Winterbottom on Wales v England

Colin Newboult
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With the final group weekend of the Autumn Nations Cup upon us, former British and Irish Lions great Peter Winterbottom joins Expert Witness as England travel to face Wales at Parc y Scarlets in Llanelli.

Ranking Irrelevance

With the visitors ranked second and the hosts in ninth, any student of statistics predicting the outcome of the Wales v England fixture this weekend will assure that the result will only go one way. However, Peter Winterbottom, a veteran of 12 Tests versus the oldest of foes, sees this differently and is quick to explain that whenever you visit Wales, the form book goes right out of the window.

“Any game against Wales will have the intensity of a world cup knock out match,” he said.

“Beating England is something of a cup final for them and the passion, intensity and ‘hywl’ they’ll bring to the game will offset any perceived difference in form or rankings.

“The rivalry is intense beyond anything else I’ve experienced in an England shirt. When I was playing, we didn’t have much difficulty in beating them at Twickenham, but it took nine years of my international career before we managed to record a win on the road.

“I recall it pretty vividly: 1991, a filthy day weather wise, with Mike Teague scoring the only try almost at the end of the game. Interestingly, Geoff Cooke, our manager, was so concerned about the noise of Cardiff, that his billeted us out in Gloucester for training with the Welsh National Anthem blaring at maximum volume for our entire sessions!

“With the utmost respect to my many Welsh mates, we absolutely hated the wonderful and majestic Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau by the end of our training week and it certainly motivated us to close out the crowd noise on the day.

“Cooke took us to Cardiff and we stayed right in the centre and went out on walkabout on both the Friday and Saturday afternoon, another of Geoff’s ‘motivational’ techniques. The final straw of motivation came when Wade Dooley picked up the paper on the morning of the game where the great Neil Jenkins, who was 19 and on debut, described the fixture as ‘just another game of rugby!’

“He read it out to the team, very slowly (Wade wasn’t a quick reader and liked to keep his finger under the words as he read them!) and when he’d finished, he slapped the paper on the breakfast table and bellowed in his deep Lancashire drawl, ‘Just another game? Well, we’ll f****** well see about that, kiddo!’

“Joking aside, the manner with which Wales raised their game against us, especially between 1988 and 1993 when we had a very decent team, was an absolute credit to them and I see exactly this happening again this weekend.

Scalping

“Wales are very much going through a rebuilding phase process post Gatland,” he added.

“The huge injury list they seem to have suffered, together with a few players getting towards the end of their distinguished careers, isn’t really helping Wayne Pivac, nor can you really judge where they are until he’s able to select from something near a full-strength squad.

“However, they’ll be desperate to take England’s scalp and salvage something from an untidy season for them. Looking back at the last few matches, I don’t believe Wales can match England physically on the gain line and I feel they’ll play a game based upon niggle, disruption, but also try and use fast hands to play a wider game and get around England on the sides of the pitch.

“With players like Louis Rees-Zammit and Liam Williams around, they’ve also got guys that have that moment of individual brilliance within them, that one individual run that lifts and inspires a team and allows confidence to pulse through the veins.

“England need to simply go and play. Own the scoreboard, keep a cushion of points and get to that key eight-point lead margin as quickly as possible. Bullying up front will not be enough to win this – that’s exactly what Wales expect us to do – so we also need to bolt on a little more ambition than we’ve seen thus far; in essence, a step forward from the other three displays recently.”

Back-row Riches

“The English selection for the game will be interesting. Already, from the squad that Eddie Jones has retained, we are pretty sure that George Ford will resume at 10 now Ollie Lawrence has a niggle,” Winterbottom said.

“With Owen Farrell and Henry Slade outside Ford, that is a slightly more creative midfield than the ones we’ve seen before. I still prefer Faz at 10 though, where his power and his defence are far superior to Ford. The real issue is we’re struggling to find a world-class 12 right now and, while Slade has been wearing 12, he’s been standing at 13 in both defence and attack, which does seem rather pointless.

“The other option is to bring back Jonathan Joseph at outside centre. JJ is one of the best defenders in the game and he offers what coaches refer to ‘wingspan’ in the 13 channel; the ability to be able to drift towards the touchline to defend both the centre and the wing channels.

“The back-row, however, is a deep seam of rich resource for England. The options we have on the flank are quite remarkable, with Tom Curry an absolutely outstanding player at blind or openside. Interestingly, the other options retained, like Ben Earl and Jack Willis, are all similar jackalling players, but I do believe we have a weakness in finding a big ball carrier to support or be understudy to Billy Vunipola.

“We really need to find a big six or eight just to take those options to the next level, someone who can, like Billy, make had yards in traffic when it’s needed. Earl has amazing gas in broken field situations, but he’s not the power runner that Billy is.

“What is interesting is, without that carrier, you look elsewhere to other positions for that go-forward. People often forget that a prop only props for say eight or 10 minutes of a game and the rest of the time he is ‘just’ a forward.

“Ellis Genge, a much improved scrummager, does give you that extra lump with ball in hand for games like this and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he starts, just to add further balance to an already high-quality pack. I also note Luke Cowan-Dickie is back after his injury niggles and again, he adds that power in traffic to the England skill set.

“Wales will be without Justin Tipuric, Ross Moriarty and Taulupe Faletau, three of their best loose forwards. Reports suggest that Wales will recall Josh Navidi alongside James Davies and Aaron Wainwright – while Navidi’s gainline defence will add a lot of steel, that’s still a very inexperienced unit compared to the English trio.

“The game is a tough one to call. I expect Wales to mix pinpoint kicking and chasing with powerful contact in an attempt to suck in England defenders to earn the right to go wide. There’s a danger they could go to wide too soon and, if they do that, it’ll be a tough day for them. England need just to shut out the emotion, own the board and keep the defence going.

“If they manage to do that, then they’ll win by a score or more, but I would urge them not to underestimate the enormity of their task. Wales versus England is more than a game, it’s about the belief and pride of a nation and you can never afford to take that level of passion for granted.”

By James While

Peter Winterbottom is one of rugby’s greatest flankers. A tearaway openside with 58 England caps and seven Lions Tests, he toured New Zealand in both 1983 and 1993, gaining a man of the match award in the Lions’ win in 1993. During the 1983 series, Winterbottom was voted one of New Zealand’s five players of the year. He played 12 times versus Wales for England, winning six times, losing five and drawing once.

 

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