Six Nations: Five takeaways from England v Wales as the Red Rose benefit from the visitors’ slow start

Following a 23-19 victory for England over Wales in their Six Nations fixture, here’s our five takeaways from the match at Twickenham on Saturday.

Lessons

As England finally managed to close out the match to beat Wales 23-19, a huge sigh of relief resonated around Twickenham as a game that should have been closed out convincingly kept on going to the final moment as Wales yet again produced an outstanding second half.

Despite the attempts of two world-class fly-halves to ignite their back division, this was a match of lateral movement by both sets of centres punctuated by powerful drives from the forwards. For England, they won that part of the collision battle convincingly, with Alex Dombrandt, Ellis Genge and Courtney Lawes hammering the Welsh gain line all day to try and commit their outstanding defence. However, the visitors were magnificent in their durability and managed to engineer frustrating width on their defence all afternoon.

England, at 17-0 up just after half-time, would have expected to have finished with a better second half points tally, but Wales, fixing their breakdown issues (they conceded eight penalties in the first half) won the second 19-11, which will concern England greatly.

Wales, rather worryingly, found a lot of space down England’s right flank, where Josh Adams ran freely for his try and ran convincingly for over 100m in the game. Alex Cuthbert was outstanding too, with 176 metres in the match and it’s a shame that the Welsh midfield and loose forwards couldn’t support both of their wingers’ excellence. But this was a match where home advantage was crucial in the final analysis and England should have been out of sight well before the last quarter and will rue their missed opportunity for the bonus-point.

Subdivisions

Eddie Jones’ replacement strategy came in for a lot of criticism in Round One in Murrayfield and again in Round Two in Rome. But today, the contrast between the bench impact of England and that of Wales was marked, as the home side fired and the visitors struggled.

Joe Marler, Sam Simmonds and Nick Isiekwe came on after 60 minutes and delivered little cameos after England had struggled in the third quarter, with Marler in particular enjoying a fine 20 minutes, winning a big scrum penalty as he drove Leon Brown back and into the Twickenham turf. He also closed down a promising Welsh move down the blindside wing with a brilliant tap tackle that disrupted a potential three on one around the fringe of the English defence.

But the big impact was Ben Youngs, running on with the pride and commitment of a man that’s just become his country’s most capped player. He hurried and scurried during his time on the field, fixing defenders, probing fringes and it was his momentum and threat that finally caused Wales to concede two penalties, the first time that they’ve conceded points in the last quarter of the game in this year’s Six Nations.

The weapon

As the old master Dan Biggar shone in red, his opposite number in white glowed even brighter. Winning his third man of the match in eight Test matches, he threatened, jinked and feinted all afternoon and managed to release wave after wave of power running from England’s back and front-rows.

With Henry Slade perhaps trying to play too much rugby in his own half at times, Marcus Smith, cohorted by the late call up, Elliot Daly, gave England simple pragmatism. The Quins pivot orchestrated varied points of attack and was always prepared to play flat and challenge the Welsh blitz defence. Daly had one of his more reliable matches in an England shirt, putting in some great touches in attack, punctuated by some welcome robustness in defending the crucial 13 corner.

Dombrandt will also be delighted with his shift; his tight game has improved beyond all recognition at Test level and his competition at the breakdown saw him win two jackal penalties to add to his opportunistic try.

But England’s sharpest weapon was again Smith. In a game of fine margins, his option selection, ability to own the scoreboard but also to challenge with ball in hand is setting him apart from any other English player and yet again, he was the star of the show.

Animate

For all of Wales’ excellence in the second half, their ability to animate their attack and to find methods to score in the first period of each game they play is handicapping their ability to deliver a competitive 80 minutes. In Dublin, they were blown away in the first half, and again, today, their indiscipline handicapped any form of early grip on the match until they managed to review and reset after the half-time break.

There’s no obvious reason for their slowness out of the blocks, other than set-piece and breakdown indiscipline. When preparing for the England match, they would have been fully aware of England’s ability to score early, yet once more, they failed to react to their own planning and preparation and they will be entirely frustrated at their sluggish start.

Nevertheless, there was a lot of their performance that they can be very proud of. Taulupe Faletau showed something close to his best form, the lineout functioned reasonably well and the wings, as noted before, made yards for fun. But the bottom line is until Wales learn to play for 80 minutes, they are going to struggle when on the road.

Limelight

It’s almost an unwritten rule of rugby journalism that referee criticism is best left to players and coaches. However, resplendent in his lime green shirt, Mike Adamson produced a display of petty pedantry, prickly pomposity and downright inaccuracy that removed any momentum or spectacle for large parts of the game.

At scrum time, his understanding of propping vectors was minimal, at one point remarkably pinging Genge for hinging whilst Tomas Francis lay flat and prone on his substantial belly. With forward passes missed, the offside line unpoliced and the set-pieces an absolute lottery of whimsy and inconsistency, both Wayne Pivac and Jones refused to publicly criticise Adamson, but Biggar cautiously commented that ‘some calls were debatable’, which is as far as a Test player can go these days without sanction.

Whilst England will be annoyed with some of the scrum calls, particularly the one on the Welsh line against 14 men in the first half, Wales were seething with the Dombrandt try; Pivac publicly questioning, perhaps quite fairly, if Adam Beard was impeded in his jump as the big Quin crashed over.

Adamson’s schoolmasterly nature caused more problems for the scrummage than any actions by the front-row themselves. These are professional Test players who operate in the set-piece all day long and his lack of empathy and directive nature at set up caused confusion and delivered more issues than the ones he’s actually trying to prevent. A little more empathy from the snarling Scot would perhaps see better outcomes on the field of play.

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