What a magic Test match that was. I have rarely seen a better one in terms of intensity, so hats off to everybody involved.
But every England supporter will be thinking: ‘What happened here?’ I am disappointed at England’s approach.
As I mentioned in the build-up, the wider context of this game is huge, especially with Wales a potential quarter-final opponent for England at the World Cup.
Every England supporter will be thinking: ‘What happened here?’ after the Wales defeat
It’s certainly not all doom and gloom, far from it, as England were brilliant against Ireland and France, and have an excellent team with a squad of players the envy of most in the world but their key rivals will look at them and know they’re beatable.
As Warren Gatland noted, Wales have forgotten how to lose but the reverse is true of England, I don’t know if they know how to win these tight games when it goes to the wire.
FARRELL FALTERED
England didn’t really fire a shot and had little to offer in attack. I said before the game that Owen Farrell would be pivotal, and Wales stopped him.
They shut him out firstly with an astonishingly low penalty count, conceding just three all match. And, really, it should have been two as the decision by Jaco Peyper to penalise Justin Tipuric for a no-arms tackle on Billy Vunipola in the second minute was ludicrous.
I said before the game that Owen Farrell would be pivotal, and Wales stopped him
It was a textbook tackle on a big guy — the TMO Simon McDowall needs a red card for that; they should be showing schoolboys the incident as the perfect example of low tackling.
Elliot Daly missed that kick and Farrell only had two more shots, one when Kyle Sinckler won a scrum penalty and the other in the second half after a Tom Curry turnover. If you don’t give a kicker like Farrell any shots at goal then one weapon is immediately taken away. He was taken out of the game completely by top-class coaching and players who thought correctly under pressure. They gave him nothing.
England got carried away with how well their kicking game went against Ireland and France, booting too much ball away to three Welsh players who are good in the air, especially Liam Williams.
Farrell sat so deep in the pocket the whole game and was clearly delivering a kicking game-plan — it didn’t look like he wanted to engage the Welsh defence. The Manu Tuilagi-Henry Slade combination, which was a positive in the first two games, was hardly used.
Farrell sat so deep in the pocket the whole game and was delivering a kicking game-plan
The captain had a poor game, but it was
