Despite herculean efforts in the final ten minutes from Wales, England secure the victory that will give them the Six Nations title.
There were some promising aspects of the game, some disparaging and some downright unpleasant parts.
The good
England’s first half performance. No doubt. It was the best 40 minutes I have seen England play in a few years. The back row, which had been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, outplayed Wales’ vastly more experienced, and on paper, better, line-up.
The front three were also superior, despite the scrum seeming relatively even. The set piece was fantastic, and this continued deep into the second half when Wales began to take some initiative.
The backs also played their part. Ben Youngs looks back to his sniping best and Owen Farrell had one of his best games in the No.12 shirt, both in kicking and in defence. Even little George Ford managed to take down a rampaging George North. Anthony Watson was once again incredible in the air, and rapid in attack and Mike Brown made an astonishing amount of yards.
Mention must be made of Maro Itoje who, as one of the youngest members of the team, produced a magnificently all-round performance against the hardest opposition of the Six Nations. The combination of George Kruis and Itoje looks to be solid, and to have Launchbury on the bench is magnificent.
The discipline in the first 60 minutes was also vastly improved with Wales on the receiving end of a huge number of breakdown penalties.
The bad
The last ten minutes. Admittedly, England were a man down, but the introduction of a raft of replacements didn’t help. If the yellow card hadn’t come immediately after these changes, we wouldn’t have seen them so horribly exposed, but the combination of the two led to Wales’ best ten minutes in attack and in creativity.
England need to be able to cope better with a man off the field if they insist on losing at least one person a game.
Manu Tuilagi’s introduction falls somewhere in between the good and the bad. His overzealous need to be involved and to prove he was back to his best pushed him out of positon sometimes, and allowed for Wales to get onto the front foot. He needs to exercise patience, but some of his hits, especially the last on George North, made you glad he was on the pitch.
Dan Cole received yet another yellow card, which is bad news for the discipline side of things, but it did seem like more of a team card when trying to stop a Welsh rolling maul.
You can’t help but think, though, now Tomas Francis has been suspended for eight weeks due to “making contact with the eye area” in the preceding maul, that if that had been spotted, he too would have gone to the bin. Then the team numbers would have been equal.
The argument that the TMO only had one angle and it was inconclusive is frankly ludicrous. It was the only angle they needed.
The ugly
Undoubtedly the harsh punishment for having your hand anywhere near the face. Having banned Chris Ashton for ten weeks, and then refusing to reduce to withdraw it upon appeal, meant that Francis had to go for a similar amount of time, even if the punishment of either doesn’t match the crime.
The ugliest of all though was Joe Marler. Immediately afterwards, the prevailing thought was that he had had a good game – strong in the scrum and defence, as well as the breakdown. However, his slur of calling Samson Lee a “gypsy boy”, and also leading with an elbow in a ruck, meant that he had two cases to answer.
I am not sure if gypsy boy is a racial slur, but it is a slur nonetheless and attacks someone’s heritage and where they come from. Therefore, it has no place in the professional game.
I am surprised at the decision not to punish Marler, but admire Lee’s willingness to forgive and forget what was an obvious mistake, albeit a foolish and derogatory one. The elbow to a player on the ground was also forgiven, deemed a yellow card offence, not a red card, and therefore requiring no further sanction.
Despite the ugliness, the game was tense, wonderfully played and a great game between fierce rivals. England now travel to Paris, where they sometimes struggle, to take on France in a Grand Slam game. Let us hope that Eddie Jones has instilled some confidence into a side that struggle when faced with pressure.
Can they do it?
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