AND CAN TURN AROUND LAST YEAR’S DISASTER

Dan Cole, 26, who was part of the team who were thrashed by Wales last year and would be playing today but for a neck injury that has ended his season, explains why England lost in Cardiff and what his team must do to make it different this time at Twicke

Slow down the Chopper

We were second best in the breakdown, too, because of Wales’s tried-and-tested

formula. One player makes the tackle, then another (usually Sam Warburton, inset right) stands over the ball to steal it. Dan Lydiate is one of the best lower-body tacklers in the world, hence his nickname, ‘Chopper’. But practically all the Welsh players are more than capable of being makeshift openside flankers if Warburton isn’t there, which means only two guys go into the breakdown, and then they get the ball fast out and have 12 others in the line. We got caught too often as isolated carriers and when hit by the Welsh double whammy — one man to tackle below, the other to steal from above — we either conceded penalties or turnovers.

Play for territory

We also need to play far more in the Welsh half than last

time. This means a cuter kicking game, which will also slow the game down to the tempo we want. Not just that, Wales were clever enough to realise that we had played a physical game against Italy six days earlier, giving us a oneday less turnaround. They like a high-tempo ball in play, which means quick lineouts, taps and any other measure to keep the pressure on. Their coach, Shaun Edwards, said last week they didn’t want to have any lineouts to keep the tempo high. Last year they gave us only six in the whole game. The score said it was tight at half-time but we were more tired than them and it showed in the second half.

Learn from the Irish

It’s not rocket science against

Wales. You know exactly what’s coming. The hard bit is stopping it. Warren Gatland has been successful with Wasps and Wales using big ballcarriers like Jamie Roberts to punch holes and either offload or create quick ball for the next phase. That is when their pack are so good at what I call ‘running around the corner’, that is going beyond the ball-carrier quicker than the opposition can get there and getting the ball out. Disrupting their set-piece by preventing clean ball will halt their flow, but most of all we have to stop them at the source, like Ireland did when they beat them 28-6 in early February. Ireland didn’t play in their own half, the likes of Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy were physical in midfield — and that will be the challenge for Billy Twelvetrees and Luther Burrell — and also took them on in the lineout by catching and driving, leading to two tries.

Use home advantage

This has nothing to do with technicalities and everything

to do with passion. On the Lions tour the Welsh boys said they had never known an atmosphere inside the Millennium Stadium like that night last year. It was a new experience for many of us and we will be better for it. Twickenham may not yet have reached the heights of Cardiff, but it’s getting there. The atmosphere for the two games against New Zealand in the last 15 months was special and two weeks ago against Ireland it was one of the best occasions the boys had experienced. It proved to be a 16th and even 17th man for Wales last year. I’m hoping we’ll have the 16th man today.