Masterclass by Ford foils Gatland’s superb stars

WALES came so close to another famous Twickenham victory before George Ford took control of the game. I thought the England fly-half produced a tactical masterclass in the final 30 minutes to guide his side to victory.

It wasn’t pretty, but England will be very happy to be two wins from two in this Six Nations.

I’m sure some people will have watched last night’s game and been disappointed in terms of entertainment. There were lots of re-set scrums.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone involved in rugby – and that’s players, coaches and fans – wants to see a running game with teams attacking from everywhere on the field.

But the reality in the international arena is that matches are won through defence, a good set-piece and a brilliant kicking game. England nailed that in the second half.

England had been under pressure. Wales were brilliant and I think even though they’ve lost their two games, Warren Gatland and his coaching staff will be pretty happy.

They nearly did enough for victory here. But Ford got to them in the end. As a No10 myself, I couldn’t help but admire his performance. Ford is exceptional tactically. He and his team went to a kicking strategy for the final quarter and it paid dividends. Ford and England’s game management was excellent.

Ford deserves a great deal of credit because after his conversion attempt was charged down by Wales because he was deemed to have moved in his run-up, he could easily have been knocked off his stride. But Ford is a player of huge experience and responded from that impressively.

He kicked a brilliant 50:22 that laid the platform from which England forced Mason Grady to be yellow-carded for a deliberate knock on. With field position, Fraser Dingwall got the crucial try.

England got the job done. To me, they looked better without the ball than with it. Their defence was, on the whole, solid and showed further signs of improvement. Their line speed shut Wales down in attack.

But there were still moments where there wasn’t joined-up thinking. One example was when Henry Slade flew up out of the line. As soon as he’d done it, you could tell from Slade’s reaction he knew he’d made a big mistake. It allowed Cameron Winnett to run clear and nearly led to a Wales try.

I know they lost, but I thought Wales were outstanding. Their young guns really came to the party and for the second week, Tommy Reffell was simply brilliant.

There looks to be plenty of fight in these young Wales lads. In the teams I played in with Wales, we were at our best when we never went away and stayed in the contest.

The next generation look like they’ve got that mongrel in them, which bodes well. Dafydd Jenkins had another top game as captain and Alex Mann is a player of real promise.

For Mann to score tries in each of his first two Tests is some going!

It’s Ireland in Dublin next for Wales, which will be an incredibly tough task. But I agree with Warren when he said this is a team which has the potential to be very good in the long run.