LONG READ Wales desperate for England scalp to arrest record losing run

Rewind to 2000 and Lawrence Dallaglio is standing pitchside at St Helen’s after Swansea RFC have just trounced Wasps in the European Cup, running out 54-28 winners. Instead of making the sharpest of exits, the England No. 8 has negotiated countless media interviews, obligingly posed for the cameras and even autographed a T-shirt with the slogan “You Can Stick Your Chariot Up You’re A*** – Wembley ’99.”

Anatomically impossible?

Oh, yes.

But when has such a consideration counted for anything in Wales and England rugby matters?

For Welsh supporters, the game with the old enemy remains the one circled in red on their fixture lists. It’s an exaggeration to suggest, as someone once did, that ‘if you offered the nation four wins and a defeat against England, as opposed to four losses and a success against England, it would be a 50-50 vote at best’, but, still, victory in the annual joust with the lot next door can put smiles on an awful lot of faces on the western side of the River Severn. Downing a bigger neighbour matters to a small country.

It cuts both ways, of course. The match means plenty to England, too – of course it does. Peter Winterbottom has recalled being at breakfast on the morning of the Wales-England game in 1991 with Wade Dooley reading The Telegraph. “He came across one headline which read: ‘19-year-old debutant fly-half says playing England is just another game.’ The interview was with Neil Jenkins,” remembered the former flanker.

“Wade said to us all: ‘We’ll see about that then, won’t we?”

An early sporting memory? Sitting on the settee at home as a five-year-old watching Wales play England in Cardiff in 1967, with the hosts needing a win to stave off a first Five Nations whitewash. Gloom and resignation were the order of the day in our house as kick-off approached, with my father resolutely of the view that there would only be one winner and it wouldn’t be the side in red – it really wouldn’t be.

But Wales got the job done, with the new full-back Keith Jarrett emerging as their hero on the day, collecting a high kick on its first bounce with the match balanced on a knife edge and racing 75 yards for a score that would nowadays be styled as a ‘worldie’, whereas back then Bill McLaren confined himself to merely acclaiming ‘a remarkable try’.

But the wider reaction came with bells on. Legend has it that a local bus company went the extra mile that night, with a driver instructed to ‘get a double-decker for Mr Jarrett’ possibly because he might want to smoke upstairs. In our house, the decibel level rose to such a level that even the cat ventured into the living room to find out what all the fuss was about. To a primary schooler, it was extraordinary: people on their feet, shouting – relief mixed with emotion. Clearly, this stuff meant a lot.

Wales v England has never been just another game, and it won’t be on Saturday, when Steve Borthwick brings his team to Cardiff.

Wales v England has never been just another game, and it won’t be on Saturday, when Steve Borthwick brings his team to Cardiff. But here’s the thing: Wales will have to improve hugely if they are to stop the worst losing run in their history at 16 defeats. Their head coach Matt Sherratt will presumably have spent the week reinforcing that message after a punchless effort from his side when it mattered against Scotland.

Where to start? Kicking the ball loosely to Blair Kinghorn, Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham, one of the most potent back threes in world rugby, was akin to bowling full tosses and donkey drops to an in-the-mood Ben Stokes: asking for trouble. If it happens against England, Wales will be inviting problems once again.

The starting half-backs Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe struggled to assert themselves, with their kicks frequently too long or too short or simply misdirected, and there wasn’t much accuracy outside them, either, with Wales claiming a meagre 35 percent of the territory. Some of their defensive work may have been excellent, but Sherratt’s team made life difficult for themselves with their inability to secure favourable field positions.

And was there really an excuse for not showing up for the first 50 minutes, a couple of honourable exceptions aside? Morgan and Faletau in case you’re wondering: both outstanding, both wearing the look of Lions this summer. But too many of the rest didn’t start playing until it was too late.

Also, would it be too much to ask that Wales quicken their ruck-speed as a matter of urgency? Ireland, France and Scotland all recycle with the enthusiasm of card-carrying Green Party members, with England not far behind. In the championship to date, all of those sides have been sending the ball back in three seconds or under in 50 percent or more of their rucks. For Wales, the figure is just 42 percent, giving opposing defences time to organise. Imagine how dangerous Jarrod Evans could be if the Welsh pack dished up quicker ball.

Wales have seen just three lineouts go wrong out of 60 on their own ball so far in the championship, an eye-popping statistic.

Appearing off the bench, Evans was one of the few bright spots for Wales in Edinburgh, immediately raising the tempo of their back play with his distribution and ability to manipulate the opposition’s defence. One pass he sent out opened the cover so smoothly it was as if someone had pressed a button to get the job done. Does he have the tactical kicking game to flourish consistently at Test level? The coaches will know the answer to that one, but whatever happens Wales should keep Evans in their set-up going forward.

The Welsh lineout also went well, with all 15 throws safely finding their targets. Indeed, Wales have seen just three lineouts go wrong out of 60 on their own ball so far in the championship, an eye-popping statistic that might take some believing for those who used to shield their eyes every time a Welsh hooker looked to send the ball the way of one his jumpers.

But Sherratt’s team have to cut out the errors, for there were too many at Murrayfield, prime among them the sequence of events that saw Ben Thomas and Blair Murray present the Scots with a try after faffing about deep in Welsh territory early in the first half. Calling the passage of play in question Keystone Kops stuff might be seen as an insult to the less than sure-footed policemen of the silent movie era.

Doubtless, the head coach would have focused on the positives over the past few days and there were pluses from Murray with his running from deep and Thomas with his passing. But if they didn’t know already, both players will now be in no doubt that slackness in the Test arena tends to be punished, and punished severely.

England will take the field as favourites, albeit favourites who will not be without a measure of apprehension.

Encouragingly from a Welsh perspective, sides in red have tended to perform against England when their backs are to the wall. In 1989, for instance, a title-chasing Red Rose team arrived in Cardiff as warm favourites with a pack containing Mike Teague, Dean Richards, Wade Dooley, Paul Ackford and Brian Moore to face a Wales side ravaged by departures to rugby league and without a previous success in the championship that season. But the home team somehow prevailed.

The story was much the same in 2007: Wales were winless on the final weekend of the championship when their neighbours arrived, but confounded the odds to salvage something from their season, with James Hook contributing 22 points made up of a try, a conversion, four penalties and a drop-goal.

None of which means history will repeat itself this weekend, and England will take the field as favourites, albeit favourites who will not be without a measure of apprehension.

“Everything points at England, because they’re the better side and we’re on a disastrous run of games,” the former Wales fly-half and captain Jonathan Davies told the BBC. “But it’s the last game, it’s in Cardiff and it’s going to be just crazy there.

“The Welsh boys will get up for it. If they get the intensity they had against Ireland and play like they did against Ireland, we are going to be in with a shout.”

Hold on tight, then. It could be quite the ride.