LONDON — The contest was over after 21 minutes. England had what they call a good day at the office. Wales were demolished as any green shoots of renewed optimism of their resurgence were trampled upon at Allianz Stadium by an England team who played with assurance and confidence to win comfortably 48-7.
As the clock ticked past the first quarter, Wales had two men sin-binned having conceded 10 penalties in the opening 20 minutes. “It was brutal,” Wales head coach Steve Tandy said. Once again, their discipline stymied themselves, leaving their foundations in pieces and offering time and space for England to build a lead.
By the time Dewi Lake and Nicky Smith came back on 10 minutes later, England had built a three try lead, and scored another to be 29-0 up at the break with Henry Arundell scoring three of them. Game over, bonus point secured.
Record Welsh defeats were being checked at this stage. But there was no complete capitulation to follow. Wales played with more heart and physicality in the second half, but any hopes of revival were quickly quashed by further indiscipline and an England team playing the type of rugby where they looked comfortable in their own skin.
The eventual return of a Arundell hat trick, a penalty try for a shot to Henry Pollock’s head as he dived over the line and further scores from Ben Earl, Tom Roebuck and Tommy Freeman was a conservative return for their attacking adventure.
England should have probably grabbed at least four more tries. Wales’ sole score came in the 51st minute from Josh Adams and was greeted by relieved rather than hopeful cheers, the ignominy of leaving Twickenham pointless had at least been avoided.
England were at times irresistible, but it was a game where the referee’s whistle made the match truncated at times. A total of six yellow cards were issued; four for Wales, two for England. It broke up the play but England barely blinked. There was a 10-minute spell in the second half where Wales managed to string together a couple of rare multi-phase attacks and they eventually grabbed one consolation score, but then came another double yellow with Ben Thomas and Taine Plumtree sin-binned and that was the end of that.
If England had an ounce more precision, records would have tumbled as they finished with Freeman crashing over in the final play of the game.
Before the championship started, Steve Borthwick was already setting sights on a showdown with France in Paris on March 14. Having seen France’s demolition of Ireland on Thursday, you already feel that match will be the final step they need to take for a Grand Slam.
England hope to be in the same boat by that stage. This was their 12th win on the bounce… England are building. But they need a Six Nations triumph to mark this progress.
This was an England team without several front-rowers, but you wouldn’t have known that such was their set piece supremacy. They also had to manage the late withdrawal of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso. George Ford was again outstanding at fly-half, ably helped by Alex Mitchell. England’s back-row dominated the breakdown, and England won virtually every collision.
Arundell showed his ruthless finishing ability with a trio of well-taken scores — sprinting down that left wing — while Roebuck was a nuisance on the opposite side. The Fraser Dingwall-Freeman partnership is still developing in the centres while Ollie Chessum impressed in the second-row. Jamie George had stepped in for captain Itoje, who was on the bench, and led the team brilliantly.
– Six Nations: Player ratings as England thrash Wales
– England’s time to win Six Nations is now… and they know it
– Schedule, results, table, squads, TV info, more for this year’s tournament
The only blot on the copybook will be the two yellow cards. One for Itoje, victim of cumulative team offences, and then another for Tom Curry late on. Borthwick will also look at the chances they left out there, but seven tries, on a sodden Twickenham pitch, in the first match of the championship is a decent return. It was merciless, and you sensed the players wanted more.
Ford dropped his head as his conversion for Freeman’s 80th minute try clipped the post — the players desperately wanted the half-century.
The “pom squad” — England’s bench — was again utilised but perhaps didn’t have the immediate impact we saw in the autumn. But by the time Henry Pollock came on, it allowed England to shift things around, moving Freeman to the wing, shifting Earl from the pack to outside centre and putting Pollock in the back-row. It’s the sort of thing they’d do in training and showed their superiority. The headline sees this as a record win at home for England over Wales in the Six Nations. Not a bad return.
While England are 12 in a row, Wales have suffered 12 defeats on the trot and it’s desperately difficult to see where they go from here. They have myriad off the field issues, with some players unsure of whether their club will exist in 18 months time, with the Ospreys under threat. It must be incredibly hard to focus with that at the back of your mind. But still, there’s little pleasure in watching Wales defeated like this. Those memories of the great Welsh sides of the first Warren Gatland era seem eons ago.
This was a poorly disciplined Wales side, lacking physicality and making several poor errors. There was the odd glimpse of promise in the performance of Aaron Wainwright, but for the third match in a row they’ve collected at least two yellow cards. You can’t expect to cause an upset with a record like that.
“We let ourselves down and are massively disappointed with the performance we put out on the field today,” a downbeat Lake said afterwards.
You feel for Steve Tandy and the players, but the reality is, they are once again contenders for the wooden spoon. Up next? France at home. Gulp.
England have Scotland next and will be wary of Gregor Townsend’s wounded side. They’ve found it tricky to win at Murrayfield in recent times — just one win in four there — and will have to be at their precise best to retain the Calcutta Cup.
Then it’s Ireland at home, Italy in Rome and potentially a Grand Slam clash with Les Bleus in Paris. This was an efficient England win, and on the evidence we’ve seen so far, it’ll be them challenging France for the Six Nations title.
