England really didn’t play that well in their Six Nations opener. Certainly, if the number of points left out there is any guide. There were times in the first half, that part of the game when both teams are meant to be still in it, when it seemed as if scoring a try just required the hosts to string enough passes together.
Fair enough, they did score four in the first half alone, but two of them, the second and third, came when Wales were down to 13. So, yeah, string enough passes together …
We are quibbling, obviously, but paving the way for the real story here, which is Wales. Or is it? The tribulations of the Six Nations’ joint most successful team (by grand slams at any rate) do not these days constitute news, but with each low registered that slightly sickening feeling deepens further. How easy to forget they were champions only five years ago.
This crisis is most keenly felt in a country so steeped in rugby’s ways, but it spreads beyond the principality. This is a crisis for the Six Nations, because at this point it is hard to see how Wales pull themselves out of the rut. And that means those hawks who have long called for the introduction to the championship of promotion and relegation will find their voices again.
In reality, the Six Nations is likelier to expand before it introduces relegation, but credibility becomes an issue in the meantime. Had England left fewer points out there, they might easily have passed the 54-point margin by which they beat Wales on the final weekend of last year’s championship – and that was in Cardiff. As it is, this is 12 matches in a row that Wales have lost in the Six Nations. France are up next a week on Sunday.
Wales are hardly the first team to try the patience of those hawks. Italy, it should not be forgotten, have been granted countless ropes’ worth of slack over the years. It might be argued we are now seeing the fruits of such patience. Italy are not likely to threaten England and France just yet, but they are a proper team now who should at least play a part in determining the winners. But as an economy, Italy ranks among the 10 biggest in the world, with a capital city to die for. The Six Nations knew it would be worth the wait.
Wales is not. A golden generation or two kept them vital for 20 years, but the problems beneath the surface were yawning ever wider in the meantime – and now the chasm is plain to see. Where is that next generation coming from? These things take years, money and patience to work. Ask Ireland, who would have been prime candidates for relegation in the 1990s. Fifteen years later they were at the top table, where they still are, more or less.
Wales, paradoxically, are hamstrung by that very same passion for the game that runs through their culture. Not one of the multitude of their passionate, small-town clubs could sustain professional rugby on their own – certainly not without the resentment of those others not chosen. And so the union has tried to make a regional system work. But these shiny constructs are at odds with that deep culture and nowhere near as well-loved as they would need to be to succeed. Throw in that small economy, and the union is faced with dire decisions to make on the future of regional rugby.
None of which helps when they have machines to face like this England team, who did not have to be at their best to force Wales into hideous lapses of indiscipline. The visitors conceded nine penalties and two yellow cards in the first quarter alone. The 10th penalty followed two minutes into the second. Ben Earl found himself on the wing around then. He almost waited for Ellis Mee so that he could run through him for England’s third try, in the 24th minute. Wales still had another a few minutes down to 13 at that point. Cue sickening feeling.
In the end, England had to wait till three minutes from the break to score the bonus point, a hat-trick try for Henry Arundell, who is damned good but didn’t have to be terribly so to score any of them. His third came from Welsh possession. Ben Thomas tried to find Louis Rees-Zammit on the loop but passed behind him. Fraser Dingwall was on to the loose ball in a flash, and Arundell away even more quickly than that.
Five minutes into the second half, Tom Roebuck rounded off a flowing passage. The always-fabulous George Ford’s conversion opened up a 36-0 lead. Anything after that was academic, but Josh Adams’s reply a few minutes later was notable for bringing up Wales’s first points in two and a quarter hours of rugby.
England head to Edinburgh next Saturday for the Calcutta Cup match, where, absurd though it may sound, they will likely have to play better than this to win. How Wales would love to be faced with such a directive. Their challenge feels rather more elemental. It might not be a very long way from existential.
