Record-breakers roll back the years and could be nation’s all-time best
Warren Gatland’s men showed awesome finishing power, says James Corrigan at the Principality Stadium
Billy Trew’s original Grand Slammers, those representatives of Wales’ original golden age, came unstuck against England when they went for their 12th win on the spin in 1910. Folklore is not about to erase the like of Trew, or Gwyn Nicholls and Billy Bancroft, but in the record books their record has now been deleted and replaced. This approximates the scale of the Welsh achievement yesterday.
Warren Gatland played it perfectly, beating rival Eddie Jones with the “mind games” both on the pitch and off it. On Thursday, he warned England that they were daft for travelling on the Friday and that the M4 would be jammed. The M4 should sue. The motorway has infinitely more space than in this encounter. Until the English tired, just as Gatland knew they would, and Wales began to motor.
Sam Warburton said before kick-off “you cannot win games on emotion” and, as well as the performance, the Welsh determination to keep their feet on the ground and their break away from heaven was best depicted when they came off the bus in the Principality Stadium.
The Cor Meibion choir was lined up on either side to greet them as they trotted up the stairs towards the home dressing room, belting out Calon Lan. The Welsh team did not even flash as much as a smile, never mind a tear in the eye. There was a good reason for that – they all had on headphones. This was not the time to be roused with hwyl, hymns, dragons and all that.
Warburton said he was a bit confused by Wales’ first-half performance, and it was no wonder. It was perceived that Gareth Anscombe was preferred to Dan Biggar because of his creativity. And what happened? Wales effected a turnover on the England 22 and with the back line spread outside him, boasting British and Irish Lions of the quality of Jonathan Davies and Liam Williams, with George North looping around, he somehow decides that the best option was to kick.
Cory Hill was chosen over Adam Beard due to his greater mobility. Wales would obviously look for space around the edges. Did they hell! Hill was bound up in the first-half melee that masqueraded as a rugby pitch. Balls have seen more air when encased in a pinball machine. But Gatland had a plan. And Hill was to prove at the forefront – and in his own way, so was Anscombe. It was the Gwent Dragons captain – yes, Cory is a proper Dragon – who went on an angle otherwise unknown to the second-row union to score the try. It was the score which lit up the Principality, in its own way “a Scott Gibbs moment”. But this was not to be a snatch-at-the-death winner, this was part of Gatland gameplay.
By the 68th minute, the time of Hill’s try, Warburton was saying on the BBC: “I was completely wrong. I did not believe we could take them on physically, but that try came after 34 phases. They showed they can do it any way.” Meanwhile, Biggar was showing just what an impact player he can be off the bench.
His contribution was immediate, taking it up to the line and kicking with ridiculous accuracy. To think he limped off early for Northampton last week and it was almost impossible at that stage to envisage him playing that role. Biggar’s chase and catch was impressive enough, but his kick to allow Josh Adams to do his Harlem Globetrotters act for the winning try was the work of a classic “finisher”. Of course, “finisher” is an Eddie Jones phrase and Cardiff were celebrating a few of those last night.
Liam Williams, the man of the match, summed up the elation. “Last week when they played France they kicked quite a lot of ball,” he said.
“We’ve been working hard this week on the back three, we’re just happy to be defusing those bombs. We’ve always known that we are a great team. We didn’t play well in the first two games, but we’ve worked hard this week and we dug deep. We go on to Scotland in two weeks’ time.”