The dragon roars

Wales upset the apple-cart of international rugby yesterday. Having crashed in an exciting, in my opinion the most exciting (and painful), RWC pool match and left the tournament early, they were playing the losing finalists at the former Fortress Twickenham. It's 20 years since Wales have won at Twickers - their grand slam years they have England in Wales. That's how big the mountain is.

Until yesterday. For 60 minutes it looked like the old story, with a twist. Traditionally Wales have been creative, imaginative and highly skilled, but playing the riskier rugby. This has foundered against the stolid, well-executed but much more limited and structured game plan. English rugby started the "10-man game" remember, and they still play it mostly, but with some cross-kicks to big wingers added. (Dave Strettle is an exception to this rule, he is a creative player.) The twist this time: Wales' skills in the contact area abandoned them and they were turning the ball over in the tackle far too regularly. Their defensive structures were all over the place (new defensive coach, new system and not enough time for it to be natural yet), but the swarm of men to the barricades in times of emergency was still there and kept the score down, as did, in my opinion, England's rather limited scoring ambition.

Then, suddenly, for the last 20 minutes, England forgot their basic skills. Passes went awry. The dancing Welsh feet, which had caused problems but relieved the pressure with poor passes or poor catching skills, continued to dance, but the balls went to hand and stuck, and the feet danced twice over the try-line. The poor passing, and the blocked kick exposed a difference between the sides too. When the Welsh do this, everyone floods back instantly and tries (not always successfully) to stop the try. When the English did it, it looked more like they looked at each other and said "WTF did you do that for?" for a heartbeat or two. At international level giving the opposition 2 whole seconds before you react gives them a lovely chance to score. Wales proved that yesterday - 2 big English mistakes, 2 tries.


It will be interesting to see how Wales go in this championship. My hopes were high, of course, but my expectations low. New coaches and totally new systems take a while to settle in, even for international quality players, add in playing England in England, not usually a good thing, and a championship where we didn't do well, but saw signs of (hopefully massive) improvement by the end of the 7 weeks seemed like a reasonable expectation. Now? Well, it's only one game. There are still flaws and a need for improvement. But have Gatland and Edwards instilled that winning habit already? Could we have a good championship in terms of being top 2 or even winning it overall? Maybe, just maybe.