Jones’ men hold off Welsh fightback to stay on track

ENGLAND survived repeated second- half comebacks f rom Wales to keep their Guinness Six Nations title hopes alive with victory at Twickenham.

Marcus Smith landed six penalties to keep Eddie Jones’ men out of reach, though there were shades of the 2015 World Cup group clash – Wales’ solitary victory at Twickenham in the last decade – as a comfortable lead crumbled.

On this occasion 17-0 became 17-12 as Josh Adams and Nick Tompkins crossed in the third quarter, capping a period of dominance from the champions, but Smith settled nerves with two timely penalties.

England finished a drab first half undermined by endless stopstart play 12-0 ahead but when Alex Dombrandt brilliantly finished an opportunist try, the game burst into life.

Wales finally found their mojo to rattle the home side, but they lacked the firepower to sustain the momentum while their opponents displayed resilience with Dombrandt and Ellis Genge at the heart of an important period after Tompkins had scored.

A Kieran Hardy try added to the tension in the closing seconds as one last assault was staged without reward.

For a second successive match Smith was named man of the match and apart from his 18-point haul, his repeated attempts to ignite a laboured attack caught the eye.

Afterwards, coach Jones insisted any preferential treatment from referee Mike Adamson evened the score after events in Cardiff a year earlier.

Wales boss Wayne Pivac questioned whether Dombrandt’s second-half try should have stood because of a line-out infringement. But Jones referenced England conceding two hotly-disputed tries at the Principality Stadium in the 2021 tournament when explaining why he felt no sympathy for the champions.

“I don’t comment on the referee. We take the good with the bad,” the head coach said. “We took 14 points last year in a Six Nations game where they allowed a play where the ball wasn’t alive and then a blatant knock-on.

“There’s the rub of the green. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t. So if we got it today that’s well and good.

“We’re not going to complain about it, just as we didn’t complain last year when we didn’t get the rub of the green.”

Jones was delighted with his men as they stood firm in the face of Wales’ onslaught.

“That was a very good win for us. Plenty of resilience, plenty of toughness,” Jones said. “We put ourselves in a good wining position in the first 50 minutes, then had a period there for 10, 15, 20 minutes where we were a bit untidy in defence and let them back in the game, but for a young team there were some good signs out there.

“We got ourselves in a lot of good attacking positions and we were able to convert that to points. But for a young team we need to find a way to be more ruthless once we get in the opposition’s 22.”

Ben Youngs stepped off the bench to become England’s most capped men’s player, his 115th appearance eclipsing the record set by Jason Leonard.

“It’s a great tribute to his work-ethic, to his resilience, to his toughness,” Jones said. “The thing I like about Ben is that he’s matured into a great team man. He always wants to be the starting half-back but he’s accepted for this game that he’s a finisher and he came on and did his job brilliantly. We’re so lucky to have a guy like him.”

Scorers, England

Smith 6.

– Tries: Adams, Tompkins, Hardy. Cons: Biggar 2.