Dwyer's View

England Draw First Blood.

Twickenham. Sat.6^th February, 2010.

Ireland had a comfortable, but expected, win over Italy at Croke Park, but the game which mattered most in the first round was England, hoping for a big improvement at last, at home to Wales, one of the biggest players of the last few years, searching for some, currently elusive, quality in their play. First blood then to England!

Unfortunately for Wales, they found none of that quality at Twickenham. They must have travelled with high hopes; they had showed some glimpses in the autumn. They had pushed the All Blacks to the wire, but then had slipped quite a few levels with a poor performance against the Wallabies. We all thought that, with most of their top players available, another Six Nations championship was not beyond them. Alas, we saw none of that, at least until the last quarter, when Wales played at last with the desire and enthusiasm needed to secure a win, rather than just to avoid a defeat.

England were better than they had showed in the autumn. They toiled up front and were far more physical than their opponents. They looked like the Martin Johnson pack that all England supporters had been anticipating – indeed, for a couple of years. “Surly” is the description that came to my mind; surely that is fitting for a ‘Johnno pack’. They scrummaged well enough and, indeed, that has been a recent problem for them. Mind you, the ref seemed to favour the ‘lotto’ system of controlling and penalising this set-piece, but England certainly held their own. At the touchline, they virtually took away any chance Wales may have had, by stealing five of their throws.

England’s back three of Armitage, Cueto and Monye often looked dangerous on kick-return or turn-over ball, but generally the backline lacked spark. Most attacks were restricted to chasing kicks or crabbing ineffectually across field. They have some quality and some pace, but they appear to lack self-belief, with fear of failure much more in front of mind.

Wales were poor. They were close to holding their own in the scrum, but that was it for the forwards. They were “dished up’ in the lineouts and manhandled in the loose. There won’t be many Welsh forwards with sore shoulders; there was precious little in evidence at the tackle or in the leg drive required at the tackle contest. Pat Cooper was far too slow, both to the ball and with the pass. A scrum-half with a wind-up before his pass, has no place at this level – or even at a few levels further down! Wales improved immeasurably when Richie Rees came on to replace him.   

Where has the real Lee Byrne gone? The guy in the #15 jersey, wearing the Lee Byrne mask, was not a patch on the real one. Indeed the whole Welsh backline were totally devoid of ideas. I’ve got a few – run straight and at pace; pass accurately in front of the receiver; back up your pass; introduce the extra man, inside or outside; vary the angle of your run/s. Oh, and I forgot a really important one – realign with urgency!  When they get a bit tired, they can practise catching the high ball. This will occupy the total of next week’s training, because they’re starting from scratch. None of this was in evidence at Twickenham.

Indeed, there was not a lot of quality on display at all, from either side. Commentator, Brian Moore, summed it up nicely, when he described one multiple phase passage of play as “multiple errors”!

For England, Hartley was busy and skillful. Early in the game, he actually ripped and off-loaded. Careful, the pace of the game might get away from us! Borthwick played and looked like a captain. Haskell, Moody and Easter outplayed their opponents, although Easter looked very strong and very slow, to me. Why does he remind me of Richard Harry? That’s right, Richard started out as a backrower also. Hipkiss looked a lot more likely to trouble defences when he came on.

Wales did not have much going for them at all, and yet, they played themselves right back into contention with only ten minutes to go. I’ll say this yet again; “The time to try to win the game is when it is nil-nil.” It is an insult to your ability to wait until the game is lost, before you try to win. Not many players stood out for them. James Hook showed a couple of flashes of his talent, as did Martyn Williams, and Richie Rees at least looked in possession of the fundamentals of the scrum-half position.

Wales did not look to be in a positive frame of mind at all and the inane action from Alun Wynn-Jones was the clearest evidence of this.  A positive frame of mind directing bodies towards victory, would not have allowed such a negative thought to intrude. This speaks of a poor preparation for the match.

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