England 48, Wales 7: Welsh misery deepens after another drubbing

Simon Thomas

It was a game some Welsh fans might well have started off watching from behind the sofa such was the sense of impending doom.

And, if truth be told, they could have been forgiven if they were in another room altogether by half-time.

There has been a lot of criticism of the mid-match adverts ITV have introduced as part of their coverage of this year’s Six Nations.

However, there wouldn’t have been too many complaints from Welsh supporters when the first of them popped up after some 26 minutes.

It meant there was at least something else on their screens to distract from the horror show unfolding at Twickenham. It would have been a merciful, albeit brief relief.

Some Ospreys fans might have chosen not to watch the match at all, such is their fury at the WRU’s plans for the pro game in Wales – plans that could well see the demise of their team.

It would be understandable if some made that choice given the strength of feeling involved and, with hindsight, it would also have been a pretty wise move.

For this was a Welsh performance – especially so in the first half – which was desperately painful to watch, one you wish you could immediately erase from the memory banks.

Suffice to say, it won’t have done anything to shift the thousands upon thousands of tickets still unsold for next weekend’s clash with France at the Principality Stadium.

One dreads to think what the ground is going to look like for that game and what the atmosphere will be. That’s before you even begin to think about what’s likely to happen on the field with the French in such rampant form.

These are dark days in Welsh rugby indeed.

The national team have won just two of their last 24 Test matches and, off the field, the sport is riven by acrimony, anger and relentless uncertainty.

The public are voting with their feet and the game in Wales feels like it is on a precipice.

Given this backdrop, the result at Twickenham wasn’t anything unexpected. Some people might have been anticipating an even worse hammering given the autumn saw Wales concede 73 unanswered points to South Africa and ship 52 against both Argentina and New Zealand.

So the final scoreline wasn’t particularly shocking.

But what was truly shocking was the first half display.

There’s an argument that it might have been Wales’ worst ever 40 minutes of rugby.

Calamitous

Now that’s really saying something given some of the calamitous performances – both down the decades and in the very recent past.

But it genuinely is hard to think of a more wretched half of rugby.

If it could go wrong it did and what made it worse was that so much of the damage was self-inflicted.

The stat which stands out above all is that Wales conceded 10 penalties inside the first 21 minutes.

When you think that teams aim to stay in single figures over the course of a whole game, that really puts that woeful tally in perspective.

In all, the visitors gave away 16 penalties and had four players yellow carded, equalling their worst ever sin-binning toll set against South Africa in Pretoria in 2022.

What’s all the more concerning is this was no one-off when it comes to indiscipline.

They also conceded 16 penalties in their last outing, versus the Springboks in November, while they gave away 49 in total during the four autumn Tests.

As for cards, they have now picked up ten yellows and one red in their last five matches.

It is a perpetual problem and one that has to be addressed.

The same goes for defence. Here too, it was a familiar tale.

They missed 23 tackles, conceded 11 line breaks and leaked seven tries.

That comes on top of the 116 tackles missed and the 42 line breaks and 27 tries conceded during the four autumn internationals.

There is a worrying consistency at play here.

What also remains the same is the loss of the gain line, with England having crossed it with indecent ease as they repeatedly won the collisions.

The set piece was also a problem, particularly the lineout during a first half where three were lost.

That, along with coming second best at the breakdown, left them with just 44 per cent possession and 41 per cent territory, in another unwanted echo of the autumn.

They were on the back foot and living off scraps and, as such, their attacking ambition was undermined at source.

Crumbs

Having shown signs of promise with ball in hand in the first three autumn Tests, they have now scored just one try in the last 160 minutes of rugby.

Even the crumbs of attacking comfort have disappeared.

It’s painful to look back at the abysmal first half display in detail, but it has to be done.

The tone was set early on with the build up to England’s first try.

It actually began with Wales having an attacking lineout in the opposition 22.

But the position was spurned by Dafydd Jenkins acting as an offside blocker and that was immediately followed by a piggy back penalty as Archie Griffin was pinged for his escorting running line off a box kick.

In the space of just a couple of minutes, Wales had gone from the English 22 to their own through their indiscipline.

A third penalty in quick succession followed and, from the resulting tap, George Ford put Henry Arundell in at the corner after the first of many strong carries from Tommy Freeman.

Then came the double whammy of two yellow cards in as many minutes, with Nicky Smith and Dewi Lake both offending at lineout mauls.

England swiftly capitalised on their two man advantage with Ford delivering a cross kick for Arundell to touch down again and Ben Earl going over in the corner with the depleted defence stretched to breaking point.

Once restored to 15 men, Wales made their first entry into the opposition 22 for some 25 minutes only to mess things up, failing to secure possession from first a lineout and then a scrum.

They then proved their own undoing once again as Ben Thomas looked to play a ball out the back only for his pass to go behind Louis Rees-Zammit, enabling Arundell to complete his hat-trick.

Ignominy

There was one last ignominy to come just before the break as Lake failed to do the tap bit of a tap and go near the English line.

It was a moment that epitomised the first half display.

The picture darkened still further soon after the resumption as winger Tom Roebuck claimed England’s fifth try.

It was a score that really summed up the scale of Wales’ defensive issues.

There weren’t too many elements to it. There was a lineout maul rumble, then a linebreak from Roebuck, then a carry near the whitewash from Jamie George.

Yet that limited passage of play was sufficient to suck the red jerseys in to the extent that when the ball was moved left there was a five on one overlap which was exploited with ease.

That will not have made pleasant viewing for head coach Steve Tandy, a man whose career progression has been underpinned by his defensive tutelage.

There was then something of a brief rally from Wales as sustained pressure culminated in Josh Adams profiting from a Dan Edwards cross kick.

But normal service was then restored as Ben Thomas and Taine Plumtree followed each other to the sin bin for offences near their own line.

Plumtree’s high tackle on Henry Pollock also saw the concession of a penalty try, while centre Freeman rounded off the demolition job with a thoroughly deserved score off another forceful carry.

Misery

With that the final whistle blew and it was a welcome sound as there is only so much misery you can take – until next week that is.

Former Wales fly-half Dan Biggar summed up the prevailing mood in his post-match comments on ITV.

“We are not standing here saying Wales should be beating England or France. They are much better teams,” he said.

“But there is a performance expectation that comes when you put on that red jersey.

“There is a way to lose and there has to be a level of performance. Wales fell well short in the first half. The level of performance in that half was nowhere near up to standard for international rugby.”

It is hard to argue with his assessment.