ALL IS FAIR IN LOVEANDWAR
WALES.........27 ENGLAND......10
WARREN GATLAND went from being lampooned with a red nose to mocked by the Red Rose.
Portrayed as a clown in New Zealand two summers ago, he had the last laugh when his Lions tamed the All Blacks.
And in Cardiff on Saturday he forced Eddie Jones to eat his words by masterminding an epic victory over England.
Gatland said: “Eddie said they were coming down to spoil our party. Well, maybe we’ve spoilt theirs.”
A come-from-behind victory over their arch rivals provided a memory to set alongside the satisfaction he took from departing his homeland unbeaten in 2017.
Not purely because his game plan worked a treat.
But because it capped a week in which everything he said and did, Gatland came up smelling of daffodils.
He had allowed Jones to goad Wales by suggesting this was their “greatest team”.
And he listened to the Australian remind the world he had never lost to a Gatland team – then came up with a plan which changed all that.
Wales took on England in the air and won that battle. Only when the win was in the bag, courtesy of superb tries by Cory Hill and Josh Adams created by superb Dan Biggar, did Gatland finally allow himself to lob a grenade.
He said: “I look back on England in the last few years. And when it’s really mattered I’ve questioned whether they can win these big games.”
“No comment,” was Jones’s terse response.
England had led 10-3 at the interval after Tom Curry’s first international try garlanded a brutal defensive display.
But Wales came barrelling back and took the lead with 13 minutes to go when second row Hill smashed over after a relentless series of drives.
And Adams sealed it at the death as he claimed his fly-half’s cross-field kick to send the Principality Stadium into ecstasy.
If Wales can beat Scotland in Edinburgh in two weeks’ time only Ireland in Cardiff on the final day will stand between them and a first Grand Slam since 2012.