‘THE WRONG CALL TO THE WRONG MAN’
WALES, for pretty much 79 minutes and a bit more, were immense in defence against a powerful, well organised and disciplined England team. But the fact remains that we lost a
Barry John
game we should have won. And we did so because right at the end, with the pressure on and clear heads required, two crucial errors of judgement were made.
The first was not to give the ball to a regular kicker accustomed to what to do in that kind of situation. The second was Jonathan Davies’ failure to belt the ball into row Z, enabling England to run it straight back and finish the game as victors courtesy of Elliot Daly’s try.
I’m not blaming Davies, I must emphasise, who stood out at other times of this game.
But in a situation like that the ball HAD to go back to either Dan Biggar or Leigh Halfpenny, players who week in, week out know what it’s like to be put in that kind of position in that area of the field and who know exactly what is required.
If they were not in the right position at the time, then take the ball up through one more phase so they can get into position. That’s thinking on your feet.
Davies doesn’t have a kick like either of those two. As such, we gave England easy ball with which to counter – and score – when it should have been a lineout, giving Wales time to regroup and sort out their defensive lines once more.
It was the wrong call to the wrong man and sadly Wales paid the penalty. It was akin to a boxer going 12 rounds, having the better of his opponent, making one careless error and suddenly finding himself on the floor with no time to recover.
That is the cruel nature of top level sport. It shows yet again that in such epic games – and take it from me this was as hard and as tough as it could get – one mistake can prove costly.
It did, enabling England to march on. Their 16th victory on the trot, having got out of jail for the second time in a week. First against France at Twickenham, then against Wales in Cardiff.
Only after, I must emphasise, their coach Eddie Jones learned first hand that the Principality Stadium is most certainly not just any other surface of grass.
No, the atmosphere throughout was phenomenal, lifting Alun Wyn Jones and his team. For the large bulk of the game England ran into a mountain of Welsh granite.
Everywhere you looked, particularly in the pack, there were Welsh players who stood up to be counted.
Alun Wyn led from the front and put down his huge credentials to lead the Lions this summer. Jake Ball, his lock partner, played as well as I have seen him for Wales.
The back row trio of Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and, in particular, Ross Moriarty produced massive tackles. They could not have done more as a forward unit to win the game.
Behind Rhys Webb and Dan Biggar controlled the half-back area of the field, Liam Williams again proved what a fantastic acquisition he is to this Wales team, whether at wing or full-back.
Liam’s try demonstrated you can score against well-set defences off a set-piece in modern-day rugby, provided you hold the moment for a split second. The England back-row were still down in the scrum, expecting a second shove, and Webb seized the opportunity to put Liam away.
In fact I felt the backs in general looked sharper and ran different and shallower lines to normal. Clearly new skills coach Alex King is already making his mark and giving them confidence to try different things.
There were lots of plus points from Wales. I could go on. So to head back to the dressing room in the circumstances they did as losers must have been utterly demoralising.
You also have to applaud England, though.
They took their chances, albeit with help from Wales in the end, but that is part of being a top rugby side and at present Eddie Jones’ men are second only to New Zealand in the world pecking order.
They appear to have been somewhat fortunate to beat France and Wales, but credit where credit is due. They don’t panic, suddenly an opportunity arises and they have the players to take advantage.