Get ready for feisty set-pieces as England put Patchell on red alert
Rhys Patchell is not an easy fellow to miss. At 6ft 4ins and weighing 15 stones, all topped by a tousled mane of aptly scarlet red, the Wales stand-off may be visible from the jumbo jets flying over Twickenham on the Heathrow flightpath, never mind by England’s ravenous defensive line, who would like nothing better than to turn the 24-year-old’s first-ever away match in the Six Nations this afternoon into the stuff of nightmares.
“I’m not going to fly out of the line and try to make a difference myself; that’s not what the team needs from me,” said Courtney Lawes when asked if he would be “going after” Patchell, who made his Sixnations debut, and only his sixth appearance overall, in Wales’s one-sided win over Scotland, 34-7, last weekend.
But do not be mistaken. England haven’t been listening to Eddie Jones ranting on about whether Patchell would have “the bottle” for this occasion, in front of an 80,000-plus crowd the head coach has been inviting to whip into noisy hysteria, only for the latest model to roll off Wales’s fabled No 10 production line to motor serenely through English ranks when it counts.
“He’s quick and he’s got some skills but as a team we’ll put him under pressure and make it very difficult for him,” said Lawes of Patchell, at which point you recalled the horizontalising treatment once meted out by the lanky Northampton forward to another callow visitor, France’s Jules Plisson. It may be stretching a point to imagine the midweek trash talk will incite the all-out violence visited on this treasured old fixture in 1980 and 1987, but Wales will get nowhere with their running game based on the strong Scarlets contingent including Patchell if they allow themselves to be beaten up by England’s huge and experienced pack. The set-pieces should be extremely feisty.
England’s defence was twice caught out in the widest channels by the otherwise easy-beat Italians in Rome last Sunday, while there was also a seasonending knee injury to scrum-half Ben Youngs. This has ushered the 34-year-old Richard Wigglesworth on to the home bench, with Danny Care starting in a battle of fastbreaking No 9s with Wales’s Gareth Davies. This should be‘quick,quick,slow’without the slow. And if it is generally reckoned Wigglesworth is better at closing out a match than chasing one, he has four Premiership titles and two European Cups at club level, and should be able to find his back row or stand-off quickly enough if it comes to it. “You see England’s consistency, particularly under Eddie,” said Alun Wyn Jones, the Wales captain, thinking of their 23 wins in 24 under their spiky Australian boss, and no loss at Twickenham since the 2015 World Cup. “It’s in their ability to have changes in crucial areas – when people come in they are able to fill the void and continue in a similar vein.”
Witness Sam Simmonds, the pacy No 8 who is one year younger than Patchell and fresh from two tries in Rome. Or the recall at outside centre of the lithe Jonathan Joseph, who can hurt Wales in both defence and attack. Has Eddie Jones, pictured left, been treating Joseph edgily, by occasionally dropping him from training squads and to the subs’ bench? Or in fact taking precious care of one of England’s shiniest gems? Joseph should be straining at the starting blocks at 4:45pm, and although his Bath club side were humbled by Scarlets a few weeks ago, he pointed out: “Coming from club to country is quite a big step in my opinion, I think we play a totally different style as well.”
The rest of the build-up’s furious focus on fitness and dealing with referees and whether the cross-border
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enmity still exists (try asking the estimated 10,000 Welsh supporters) will be resolved soon enough.
A predictable England win, then, on home turf? The French referee, Jérôme Garcès, has handled three of the last four competitive matches between England and Wales – two in Cardiff, one in the 2015 World Cup group stage at Twickenham – and each one has been an away win.
So Eddie Jones was veering nearer the centre of the controversy spectrum when he observed: “Wales played well against Scotland, they’re definitely confident, they’re definitely cocky, they definitely believe in the way they’re playing. I’m anticipating this being a tight old Test match.”