LONG READ 'Wales v England has a special resonance and can make a mockery of what has gone before’

It would take the combined wordsmith talents of Dylan Thomas and Max Boyce, with a dash of enraged Phil Bennett thrown in for good measure, to conjure up the emotional energy Wales need to face England on Saturday with deep-seated conviction.

Benny spoke of England raping and pillaging Wales’s industrial base before the 1977 encounter at the Arms Park, bellowing ‘look what those bastards have done to Wales’.  Well, sadly, in recent years the villain has been closer to home, the WRU doing what the English raiders did, asset-stripping through incompetence if not design.

Welsh rugby has been brought to its knees through ruinous mismanagement. Ironically, it’s minimal rise from the horizontal has been aided by an Englishman, Gloucester-born coach Matt Sherratt, who relies on best practice coaching to get his men in the right place for Saturday. Pushing the tribal button is not for him.

It would be tempting to dismiss all aspects of the fiery hokum that surrounds this fixture and focus on the bare facts. Wales have lost 16 Tests in a row and are within touching distance of being the worst Tier One side in history. A second successive wooden spoon is on the cards, an ignominious state of affairs.

The supposed advantage of playing at home is a no-no as far as Wales is concerned. No matter all the hymns and arias that pour down from the Principality stands to sustain the stadium’s billing as the finest in the world, Wales’ record is pitiful with their last win there back in the mists.

In the modern era, with its science and data and analysis, old-fashioned myths ought not to be given the time of day. Wales have been crap. England have not. The bookies have the game at a 12-point start for the home side. And they would be right. England are very warm favourites and they have no Cheltenham fences to clear to avoid doing a Constitutional Hill job on that status.

One emboldened Wales fan expressed his pent-up fury at the sight of the enemy by head-butting the England team coach as it inched its way through the crowds.

And yet. No matter how much you peruse the form book, how much you reference England’s change of fortunes over this championship, turning from serial unlucky losers to get-out-of-jail winners, capitalising on that new-found confidence to run in seven tries against Italy, a nagging thought won’t go away. Namely, this fixture does have special resonance and can make a mockery of what has gone before. England have to address historical demons.

They would appear well prepared for the possible effects of such a raucous, bile-drenched backdrop. Ollie Chessum has spoken of the middle-digit treatment that he received from a five-year-old on his only visit to Cardiff. The Leicester lock got off lightly. Others have had nasty stuff land on them as they ran out from the tunnel while one emboldened Wales fan expressed his pent-up fury at the sight of the enemy by head-butting the England team coach as it inched its way through the crowds.

Intimidation is in play, then. In 2013 Chris Robshaw’s side travelled with justifiable confidence to play for a Grand Slam only to be obliterated, 30-3, triggering that wonderful smirking face of Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies alongside a crestfallen Clive Woodward and Jerry Guscott. That picture spoke a thousand words.

Stuff happens in sport. It would take a considerable overturning of the odds, even more than it did when Scott Gibbs gate-crashed premature England’s Grand Slam celebrations at Wembley, for Wales to win. For all the noise, off-field and actually in the stadium, there is no fear factor for England teams in Cardiff as there once was when they went an astonishing 28 years (between 1963 and 1991) without a win there.

England manager, Geoff Cooke, has to resort to playing the Welsh anthem, ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau,’ through the Kingsholm PA system where his team were training prior to heading over the Bridge. It worked. England thumped Wales, 25-6, to lay that bogey to rest.

Wales’ wretched predicament prior to Warren Gatland walking away after the shaming loss to Italy has eased in some regard. The caveat, however, is that the apparent uptick in mood has not been reflected in the record books. The improvement is relative, a reflection of the trough of despond in which Wales found themselves. There is no longer such a hang-dog feel in the air and that will come into play on Saturday. Wales selection is more appropriate and there is a settled feel about the team, as much as that is possible after just a few games.

England’s identity has already had a makeover, injury-enforced perhaps, but with a clear sense that they are genuinely on the move forward and intent on bringing the game they put in place against Italy to Cardiff.

There was plenty of positivity about Sherratt’s first game in charge when his new charges took the game to high-flying Ireland, showing grit and initiative. Gone were the blues of the latter Gatland era, in came some much-needed energy and enthusiasm. The gains may have been minimal on the scoreboard in that Wales experienced yet another defeat,18-27, but, finally and crucially, there was hope.

That sense of possibility is a fragile thing as events at Murrayfield showed. Wales, once again, were patchy and half-cock in the first half, off the pace, battered physically and jittery in their decision-making. Yet, by the final whistle, they had two bonus points in the bag from an improbable 35-29 scoreline. Which Wales will England be facing on Saturday?

England’s identity has already had a makeover, injury-enforced perhaps, but with a clear sense that they are genuinely on the move forward and intent on bringing the game they put in place against Italy to Cardiff. The loss of Ollie Lawrence is a blow as the Bath centre was enjoying a fine tournament. The switch to outside centre of Northampton’s Tommy Freeman is a move that had to happen at some point. England are reasonably well-stocked for wings but they lack options in the centre.

There is no place for Henry Slade whose race now seems to be run (we’ve said that before), nor even either Oscar Beard or Max Ojomoh. The fact that George Ford has been summoned to the bench for the Principality opens up the possibility that in extremis, England might switch Fin Smith in-field.

Quite when and how the Marcus Smith conundrum will be resolved is anyone’s guess. That he is back in starting favour is a surprise with Elliot Daly moving to the wing. Daly has already done the business for England in scoring the match-winner against France. Perhaps he can repeat the trick as he did in Cardiff in 2017 with his late Friday night score then.

It will be one decided by matters of form, not historical enmity or drummed-up waves of passion. In that regard, England are in pole position.

Even if there is a sense of shilly-shallying over Marcus Smith’s true rule, there is a feel elsewhere that Borthwick, who has shuffled his deck for Cardiff with nine changes of personnel and position, is doing so from a position of strength. The England coach has options up front, and is likely to have even more so in the future given that U20 star, flanker Henry Pollock, gets his first call-up to the replacements.

England have riches aplenty in the back row. The Curry twins get the nod here, and they have been on top of their game in their respective roles through the championship, as England look to contest the breakdown with ferocity.

England have been through their dark days. Wales are only just emerging, blinking onto the sunlight, still unsure of quite where the horizon actually is. They still have a long pathway to travel. Of course they will use every means available to get themselves in the right mood for Saturday’s encounter. But it will be one decided by matters of form, not historical enmity or drummed-up waves of passion. In that regard, England are in pole position.