England takes the honours in Cardiff

By Mark Stevens
25/2/23

England made it back-to-back victories in this season’s Guinness Six Nations Championship as they heaped further misery on Wales with a 20-10 victory in Cardiff.

A frantic first half saw the teams separated by a try from England wing Anthony Watson and although Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit managed an intercept try early in the second half, the visitors responded with scores from Kyle Sinckler and Ollie Lawrence.

Wales' players had threatened to go on strike in the build-up and could not overcome their troubled preparation. They have now lost 12 of their last 15 games and suffered a third successive Six Nations defeat since Warren Gatland's return as head coach.

Wales - who included the Exeter Chiefs duo of Christ Tshiunza and Dafydd Jenkins in their line-up - have endured their worst start in the tournament since 2007 and have to travel to face Italy and France as they bid to avoid a first Six Nations whitewash in 20 years. This defeat means Wales will drop to 10th in the world rankings.

For England head coach, Steve Borthwick, it was a notable victory and one he was keen to praise at the final whistle.

“The players showed great resilience, great spirit,” said Borthwick. “They changed things tactically in the game. It was an incredible Test match. There wasn’t much in it really.

“This is a tough time for rugby in so many different ways right now and what those Welsh players have been through in the last couple of weeks, to produce a performance like that, they deserve incredible respect for it.”

Borthwick added: ““Wales took this game into a kicking contest… and what we did so well was to adapt to that and try and find a way to win in that pressure battle. That tells me a lot about our players, how intelligent they are, how composed they are on the pitch. As we’re in this process, we need to keep these players growing. Now we’ve got to push on.

“There were bits in that performance that we can really push on with. We’ve got two big games to finish the Championship. For now we’re going to make sure we enjoy that win.”

Wales head coach Warren Gatland says his side are desperate to avoid the Six Nations wooden spoon.

“Last thing you want to do is get the wooden spoon. That’s got to be our focus from that,” he said. But “part of this Six Nations is about us thinking about the next six or seven months.

"We’ve got older players still holding their hands up and some younger players who need some time. We’ve not got that group in the middle who have 30 or so caps. We’ve got to marry the two together and start thinking about that going forward.

"Some of those youngsters need to be given more time together. You can’t coach experience.”

The game went ahead after some concessions by the union, including reducing the threshold for players available to be selected from overseas from 60 caps to 25.

Gatland said on the eve of the test that that standoff had affected him and his players, but post-match he insisted the issues were no excuse for Wales’ defeat.

"We weren't making any excuses for what happened in the week. Getting up for an England v Wales game is not difficult. The week was challenging, we realise and understand that, but we were not making any excuses."