Match action
WALES will not be lulled into a sense of false security by their ascent to the top of the world rankings while England were given a sharp reminder of just how quickly fortunes change when you do not bring your ‘A’ game to play the Welsh in their own backyard.
A scrappy second leg warm-up Test, which was settled by a cleverly crafted George North try left both the England coach Eddie Jones, and his Wales counterpart Warren Gatland, with plenty to ponder.
The biggest concern for Gatland will be that the Welsh scrum creaked badly for a second weekend in succession to give England an important foothold in Cardiff.
This time, however, the pluses outweighed the minuses significantly, with Wales turning the tables by winning the breakdown battle, and also putting England under pressure when half-backs Dan Biggar and Gareth Davies put the ball in the air.
There was the considerable bonus of fly-half Biggar emerging as this match’s central figure after the blow of losing Gareth Anscombe for the World Cup at Twickenham.
The rangy Welsh 10 was inspirational in both attack and defence, with his quick thinking instrumental in North’s try, and his conversion and penalty largely responsible for the 10-0 lead his side had at the interval.
With captain Alun Wyn Jones also getting back to his formidable best after a quiet display in the first leg, England were confronted by a home side with far greater focus and determination then they showed last weekend.
By contrast, Jones will be concerned by the continued lack of aerial command in the back three, with Elliot Daly and Joe Cokanasiga vulnerable, and only Anthony Watson showing the conviction and positional sense required to repel the Welsh bombardment.
The England coach will also have learned that his back row is nowhere near as effective at the breakdown without either Tom Curry or Sam Underhill at openside, whereas Wales were well served by Josh Navidi, and, until he was replaced, James Davies.
The increased Welsh pressure also resulted in a far less effective kicking game from George Ford, and the hit-and-hope element seemed contagious with Ben Youngs and Kyle Sinckler spiking rare moments of English secondhalf momentum by putting boot to ball at the wrong time.
Add to that England’s failure to damage Wales with their driving maul, which was thwarted consistently by the home pack – and on one occasion early in the second half smashed backwards – there was plenty of room for improvement before the World Cup.
Jones had called for England to be brutal at the breakdown and rattle Wales again, just as they did on home turf six days earlier. Instead, with the predictability that these World Cup warm-up games often produce, it was as if it was pre-arranged that Warren Gatland’s side would take the initiative.
Having had their unbeaten 14-match run ended in south-west London, Gatland warned his players that there were still World Cup places up for grabs – especially as, unlike Jones, he has yet to announce his squad of 31.
Perhaps that gap in motivation explained why this time it was Wales who summoned the intensity, and England who watched them do it rather than battling tooth and claw. It was also evident from the outset that the Welsh tactical approach was to attack England by moving the ball quickly to the touchlines, whether by hand or foot.
Having been targeted by Wales in the Six Nations defeat in Cardiff, Daly was soon reminded that he was still considered to be suspect in the air when the Welsh put three high balls on him in the first five minutes.
With Wales starting to win the lion’s share of territory and possession, and the lively Aaron Wainwright driving deep into the 22, England conceded a penalty for offside, which Biggar kicked for a 3-0 lead with 25 minutes played.
The decisive passage of the match came on the halfhour after Leigh Halfpenny – who was a last-minute replacement at full-back when Liam Williams suffered a hamstring in the warm-up – snapped up a Willi Heinz box-kick despite pressure from Jonathan Joseph.
As Wales counterattacked Watson could see that he was on a hiding to nothing with two or three Welsh runners on the overlap and took the right option of racing up with the intention of making a man-and-ball tackle to stop Hadleigh Parkes getting the ball to them. However, he made the wrong call by also deliberately knocking the ball down as he went into contact, which saw him sin -binned by referee Pascal Gauzere.
At the same time as Watson was walking off after being yellow-carded, England were also in the process of bringing Ben Youngs off the bench to replace Heinz, who had taken a heavy knock.
Biggar immediately seized the opportunity to catch England napping, and taking the penalty quickly while the visitors were reduced to 13 men, he sent a perfect cross-kick to the right wing where Josh Adams caught it on the bounce.
With England in defensive disarray, Adams linked with Jonathan Davies in the 22, and when the ball was recycled from the ruck Biggar stroked a second inch-perfect crosskick into the path of North, who strolled over unopposed.
With the Welsh fly-half converting his own handiwork England went into the second-half playing catch up. However, given the strength of the bench that Jones deployed after the interval – sending on Owen Farrell, Jamie George, George Kruis, Joe Marler, Kyle Sinckler, and Manu Tuilagi – there were reasons to believe they could still
overhaul Wales.
These hopes grew when the England pack squeezed two penalties out of Wales, one courtesy of a Billy Vunipola turn-over, and the other from the scrum, which Ford kicked to narrow the gap to 10-6 with 25 minutes to play.
England’s best chance of the game came courtesy of a George show-and go on the blindside of a maul which freed Youngs to send Watson racing down the touchline, only for the England winger to be cut down a few metres out by a tremendous cover tackle by replacement Wales scrum-half Aled Davies.
England had a further glimmer of hope when Maro Itoje intercepted to set up an attack which was eventually squandered and the sense of the match slipping away was compounded when a Halfpenny penalty five minutes from time gave Wales a seven-point cushion.
England had one last opportunity to pull it out of the fire with a kick to the corner in the final minute, but when their line-out drive was sacked again there was no way back against a Welsh side determined not to go into their World Cup campaign with the psychological ball and chain of two consecutive losses against their arch rugby rivals.