If you ask the locals around Cardiff, there are a lot of words they might use to describe the English. Humble is not one. In fact if you are waiting for one of them to say that, you will never catch that last train out of town. The same goes for Eddie Jones. “Arrogance,” Jones once said, “is only bad when you lose. If you’re winning and you’re arrogant, it’s just self-belief.”
Of course England were winning, until now – six of their last seven coming into this match, the odd loss that one-point defeat by New Zealand and the last two victories among the best they have achieved in recent years. Despite that Jones played it ever-so-humble in the run-up to this match.
“We are playing the greatest Welsh side ever, so we’re going to have to be at our absolute best,” Jones said right after his side beat France. He repeated the theme in every press conference and interview he gave during the two-week break. It was the Welsh, Jones insisted, who were the clear favourites. “That’s what we’re hearing,” Jones says. “You read the papers, it’s all been about Wales.” He insisted England were underdogs, despite the bookies’ odds. It was probably not Jones’s most convincing dummy. Warren Gatland was certainly not buying it.
“The only quotes I can see about this being the greatest Wales team are from Eddie Jones,” Gatland said before the match. “He’s the one talking us up.” Better talk them up than run them down. Gatland is one of those coaches who really does pin newspapers up in the dressing room if it will give his players an extra bit of motivation. The last thing England wanted to do was give the Welsh any more reasons to want to beat them, and Gatland will have struggled to find any among all the nice things Jones and his players have said this last fortnight. “Love,” Billy Vunipola said, “is better motivation than hate.”
It was almost as if the English wanted to kill the Welsh with kindness. Well, kindness and eye‑rattling, tooth-chattering, bone-clattering tackles. England made more than 50 of them in the first 15 minutes, when they persisted with this tactic (which had worked so well against Ireland and France) of making come‑and-have-a-go kicks back to the opposition. Liam Williams, though, is a different proposition from either Robbie Henshaw or Yoann Huget, the square-peg full backs they had faced in those last two matches. And Williams was happy to do exactly what England were inviting him to.
Those opening minutes came at such a furious tempo the match passed like a cartoon brawl, a whirl of bodies and boots and fists flying all around the pitch. In among it there were little glimpses of the telling blows: Vunipola was chopped down by Justin Tipuric, Owen Farrell hammered Gareth Anscombe with a tackle from offside, George Kruis stole a crucial lineout, Jamie George won a key turnover, and Williams scythed through the midfield before he was flattened by Kyle Sinckler. Amid all this it was Tom Curry who broke the game open when, all of a sudden, the Welsh line split in front.
Tipuric had his back turned at the wrong moment in his own 22 and Curry sprinted past him to score. That gave England an unlikely lead after a half in which Wales had two-thirds of the possession and two-thirds of the territory. England had played a similar way against Ireland and France, only in those matches they had combined their aggressive defence with some scalpel-sharp attacking play. This time there was a lot of cudgel but less of the rapier. Jonny May made one brilliant break late in the second half. Otherwise England’s play was a lot scrappier than it had been in either of their last two games. It had to be, because Wales put them under so much pressure.
They had been working, Gatland explained, on closing down Farrell and Ben Youngs, cutting short the time they had to work in. It showed in the number of mistakes England made and the penalties they gave away as they became frustrated. They conceded six in a row, the last two of them by Sinckler, whom Gatland had singled out as an “emotional timebomb” before the match. They cost three points, so Jones promptly took Sinckler off. England finally won a penalty moments later, which Farrell kicked to stretch their lead back to four at the start of the last quarter.
Cory Hill’s try, though, soon switched that around. Well as England were tackling – Harry Williams collared Alun Wyn Jones, Jack Nowell caught Liam Williams – the Welsh just kept coming and Hill scored in the corner after a string of 30 phases. So England were three points down with 10 minutes to play. Here was a test of their mettle. And they failed it. Wales scored again, a quite brilliant finish by Josh Adams as he gathered a high, hanging cross-field kick.
Well, then, maybe we should have taken Jones at his word after all. It was not a bluff; perhaps they really are the best Wales team there has ever been – good enough, at any rate, to bring down England, who were less humble than humbled.
“Full credit to Wales,” Jones said, “they played very well and they deserved it.” And this time he sounded quite sincere about it.