My smugness became panic pretty quickly
AFTER I said last week that no Welsh player would get into a combined England and Wales side, I must admit I was feeling pretty smug when Alex Dombrandt’s try made it 17-0. Then, as Wales mounted a late comeback, I got pretty nervous. I thought it was going to be a rerun of the 2015 World Cup game all over again!
I got plenty of stick from Welsh fans on social media for what they saw as an attack on their players, but I’ve got to give credit where it’s due now.
Taulupe Faletau put in an unbelievable shift. For him to play like that after so long out was remarkable. He played like the Faletau I remember facing when he was at his peak.
Alex Cuthbert also looked back to his best. He’s had a lot of flak from fans and spent a long time away from Test rugby, but his performance was superb.
For him to make 176 metres from 14 carries is unbelievable. I also thought Tomos Williams — who I’m a big fan of — came into the game in the second half with the speed of his play.
Faletau, Cuthbert and Williams would all make my combined team from the sides which played yesterday, so I’m happy to eat humble pie on that!
But it still wasn’t enough for a Welsh victory. England did just enough to come out on top and keep their Six Nations hopes alive. But they will have to go up several levels if they are to trouble Ireland and France.
From the 50-minute mark, England looked tired. It was the same against Italy in Rome. I’m not inside the camp, but I do know from working under Eddie Jones that his sessions are incredibly tough. They have to be because Test rugby is a big step up from the club game.
Maybe Eddie will have to look at the way he prepares his side because in the second half, England’s dominant hits disappeared and I thought they lacked energy and physicality.
Wales began to get on top as a result and ended up outscoring England by three tries to one.
That’s a worry because it won’t be as easy for England to dominate Ireland and France.
England built a nice score without playing much rugby in the first half, but in the second quarter we started to see more of what Eddie wants.
The forwards were dominant and that was when we started to see Marcus Smith stamp his control on the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t see it often enough over the 80 minutes. It was a big call from Eddie to start Harry Randall over the recordbreaking Ben Youngs, but I thought he had a very good game. Randall has emerged as genuine competition for Ben.
Dombrandt was also superb and could easily have been man of the match.
I’d like to congratulate Ben for breaking Jason Leonard’s caps record, an amazing achievement. He’s a great guy who deserves such an accolade.
England are still in the hunt for the Six Nations title but it will take something very special from them to deny France and they must beat Ireland to give themselves a chance.
France are undoubtedly the team to beat. They showed against Scotland they have an all-court game which is on a different level. England aren’t at that level yet and still have several strides to take.