‘Brutally honest’ England great dismisses Wales as ‘ludicrous’ and talks up Bielle-Biarrey-type ‘firepower’ that now exists under Steve Borthwick
Ben Youngs has spoken about Welsh weaknesses and the strike rate of England's Henry Arundell, inset
Legendary England player Ben Youngs has called out Wales for their level of self-inflicted wounds last Saturday at Allianz Stadium.
Steve Tandy’s side were trounced 48-7 in a desperately one-sided Six Nations match, paying a heavy price for continued indiscipline and rank bad errors.
England had the four-try bonus point secured before the interval and the Welsh, who played two periods of the match down to 13 players after their four yellow cards arrived in pairs, could only manage a low-level skill execution that was never enough to regain respectability.
To say Youngs, the record England men’s caps holder, was miffed by what he saw would be an understatement. He was left horrified by what was once a fixture that usually went to the wire was now so one-sided that the atmosphere in the ground wasn’t exciting.
“I’ll be brutally honest, how underwhelming,” he bemoaned on the For The Love Of Rugby show he co-hosts with fellow retired England centurion Dan Cole. “I don’t know why, my expectation was that they would be considerably better than what they were, but there are so many flaws in their game.
“England winning collisions for fun…”
“You know when you play a game and you lose and you’re okay, if we did this better or if we did that, that could have changed the result or we could have been in it. I look at it and there are so many (weak) parts to their game; ill-discipline an obvious one. Lineout, their inability to function and launch.”
The level of Welsh indiscipline particularly irked Youngs, as he returned to this hot topic some minutes later and he also called out their meekness in the collision. “You’re just thinking you’re away from home and some of the parts of your game, what you’re doing, is ludicrous. You’re just inviting pressure, shooting yourself in the foot.
“The back field stuff and the ball finding grass that many times, you can’t do that, this is some of the basic fundamentals of a game. Not even a Test game, just a club game, you can’t be doing that that often. So, it’s brutal, I’ll be honest.
“It’s not even the missed tackles that are the big thing for me; it’s the fact they can’t win a collision. I looked at Alex Mitchell and George Ford at the weekend, who were both terrific. They played with speed, and they moved the point of attack, but all of it was that England were on the front foot the entire game.
“England were winning collisions for fun. Instead of making no metres or one metre, England were making four, five. The speed of the ball. How many jackals did Wales get? Not many, if any. It’s all because England were on front foot dominance, so Wales can’t win collisions without the ball and then they are struggling to win collisions with the ball.
“There are so many parts of it, but you look at it and think until you sort out the gain line, until you sort out the discipline, until you sort out the fundamentals of a lineout and all those bits, until you see a change in that, you are just going to get more of the same.
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“Even being in the stadium for an England-Wales game, for a fixture like that, the atmosphere was average. People enjoyed the day because England played some great stuff, but the atmosphere wasn’t exciting. It didn’t have that feel, that consequence, that ‘oh my gosh, this could go to the wire’.
“It’s sad because that’s not how the fixture should be between England and Wales but the reality is that’s where Wales are at. I got lured in thinking we are going to see a bit more from Wales; well, it turns out we didn’t and I am not sure when we will.”
Cole added: “It’s the whole process of it, if you’re Wales, you’re not good enough to overcome these mistakes. It’s not being horrible; that’s where it is. You’re going to have to get all this in-house stuff in order; you have to be able to have a certain floor of your performance…
“To win an international game, you have to be solid and then bring X-factor on top, but you have to have a certain floor. And Wales at the weekend, nine penalties in the first 20 minutes, you can’t win Test matches against really good sides doing that.”
One England player who cashed in royally on the Welsh weaknesses was Henry Arundell, who was making his first Test start since Rugby World Cup 2023.
The winger bagged a 28-minute first-half hat-trick but it wasn’t just this finishing prowess that caught Youngs’ eye, more the package that is now more complete than what it was before the youngster exited the international fold to spend two seasons at Racing before signing last summer with Bath.
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“Hat-trick, his first start since the World Cup, 61 metres made, eight carries and his tries, they are simple finishes in many ways as George Ford is like the king of assists, but the one I want to highlight is when Wales run that move from the scrum, wraparound and totally butcher it.
“(Fraser) Dingwall picks it up, gives it to Arundell, foot race, score. It sort of reminds me of LBB, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, in terms of the pace and the ability. To have those strike runners and firepower is so key because any turnovers, any moments like that, you just look for your quickest guy and off he goes.
“Then you look at it on the back of the kicking game. These are things that people won’t see around Arundell but when George Ford is tactically finding grass and it’s hitting the ground nine times in a game, it’s Arundell’s pace and ability to chase after it, put his team onside and go and hustle.
“It’s all those other bits, and eight carries at the weekend, getting off his wing, getting involved and looking for touches, a really strong start for him. There is no substitute for out-and-out gas but the most pleasing thing is all the other parts of his game that maybe people don’t see, his defensive read, the kick chase, the backfield cover. Really impressive start.”
Acknowledging how the 23-year-old’s strike rate of scoring 11 tries in 12 Test matches, Cole added: “I’m not saying he hasn’t been coached but because he can finish tries, sometimes it’s just let those guys just be themselves and give them the ball. But with England at international level, you have to be good at everything, you can’t have any weaknesses and being at Bath has helped him. You saw at the weekend his high ball stuff, he’s going up contesting it. That’s his game and how it’s going to grow.
“He has always had this massive strength in terms of his finishing and his pace, but if you can’t catch a high ball in the international game, someone will find you. You can’t have any weaknesses, and he is definitely working on that. Wingers do so much unseen stuff… he is building on those things, and to have a strike rate in the international game that he has is incredible. Three tries from eight touches (against Wales), you’re doing something right.”
