Posted by As soon as Wales have been crowned Rugby World Cup winners-to-be, the dreams have been dashed as 12-man England sneak a win at Twickenham. Maybe slightly facetious, but a week and totally new squad selections make a big difference.
The first-half followed a pattern; England dominated possession and territory, knocked at the door but could not make it over the line. Wales defended valiantly but struggled to turn the ball over and fire any shots in attack, although that wasn’t helped by Henry Arundell cynically preventing Liam Williams and Josh Adams from counter-attacking down the left.
From a Welsh perspective the big talking point was the lineout and maul which faltered faster than Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads. Lazily the finger still gets pointed at the hooker but only one of the six lost throw-ins could be directly attributed to the thrower when Sam Parry missed Adam Beard in the second half, and even in that case the blame may lie more with Beard’s handling.
The main questions should fall to Warren Gatland and Jonathan Humphreys though; Gatland for picking a side with only two primary lineout jumpers in Beard and Taine Plumtree who, of course, were marked out of the lineout by Maro Itoje and Courtney Lawes, and Humphreys for not equipping the players with enough bail out options to get around that defence.
With the maul suffering from the knock-on impact of either poor quality ball or a lineout that was called to the middle where the shove is easily defendable, the platform was simply not there for Wales to kick-on. Compounded by a lack of big ball carriers in the back line, it was a stunted 60 minutes of offensive play from the men in red.
When the Welshmen did get going they scored a well worked try thanks to Joe Roberts and Tomos Williams combining, but the secondary problem on the day was game management, which leads to some bizarre moments rearing their head.
Red shirts seemed to heading for the celebratory post-match buffet after the try was scored leaving Keiran Williams unsupported as he chose to head upfield, then Dan Biggar took it upon himself to drag forwards out of a defensive maul to defend a midfield attack that was as likely to materialise as a legal Owen Farrell tackle.
Unsurprisingly the English pack, or what was left of them, simply pushed over the try line and once Dan Lydiate was caught unnecessarily offside for a second time in the game, that was all she needed to write for the home side to nab a crack covering win.
If, God forbid, I suddenly became Saes I’d be absolutely petrified of the Rugby World Cup coming up. My team look one-dimensional, but ineffectively so, are suffering key injuries and suspensions, and overarchingly are playing boring rugby. There could be a dynamic and skilful squad there with the likes of Zach Mercer, Alex Dombrandt, Henry Slade and Ollie Hassell-Collins, instead it’s unimaginative at best.
From a Welsh perspective there’s still elements to be positive about. A close to first choice England 23 was pushed all the way by a Wales 23 that was still much changed from that which will take the field in France, the defence has held firm for 160 minutes, and there was some nice touches in attack.
Individually Gareth Thomas likely did enough to remain first choice loosehead, Rhys Davies got through a good amount of work despite being part of a beaten pack, Tomos Williams continues to look sharp at scrum-half, Joe Roberts was tidy on debut, and Liam Williams was undoubtedly the standout player from full-back.
Off the bench Dillon Lewis continued his upward curve, Taine Basham was looking lively before he collided with Farrell’s shoulder, Dan Biggar was competitive at fly-half and Keiran Williams showed flashes of his talent, albeit without much ball to work with.
However, there is some concern with the quite spectacular way that Wales imploded in that final quarter, possibly belying a lack of confidence hangover from the past 12 months and the Six Nations in particular, while there was undoubtedly some players who played themselves off the Eurostar to the RWC including some names who may have been considered close to certainties beforehand.
The overall performance level dipped at Twickenham when compared to Cardiff the previous week, the focus now has to be returning to that level and finishing the warm-ups on a high against the Springboks on Saturday to take momentum forward to Bordeaux.
Cardiff Rugby Life 