England 19-17 Wales
by David Nicholson
at Twickenham

ENGLAND won the return World Cup warm-up against Wales at Twickenham in a scrappy game that saw the home side reduced to 12 men.

The final score was 14 men versus 14 after England were shown three yellows and skipper Owen Farrell was shown the red card against two Welsh players sent to the sin bin.

The red card for Farrell for a high tackle on Taine Basham where his shoulder hit the forward’s head will be considered at a disciplinary hearing tomorrow.

But the panel is unlikely to show leniency to Farrell as he has a record for this type of tackle, including a three-week ban from the game in January conditional on the player attending “tackle school.”

This was meant to be England’s first choice 15 against a Welsh second string, but coach Steve Borthwick’s men kept making the same handling errors as they did when they slipped to defeat last week.

Welsh fans will be tearing their hair out that their team failed to win despite England being down to 12 men.

Coach Warren Gatland expressed his frustration: “I am furious actually, pretty disappointed.

“We found out about a few people today, some game-management in terms of when we had them on the ropes and just let them off the hook, which was disappointing, but answered a few questions.

“England scored a try from a driven lineout, but they didn’t really put us under a huge amount of pressure from an attacking perspective. That was a game we should have won,” Gatland said.

But head coach Steve Borthwick failed to give an honest assessment of England’s disciplinary implosion and instead praised his side’s resilience.

“I am incredibly proud of the character that the players showed,” said Borthwick.

The watching rugby world will have seen two very ordinary sides with little attacking creativity compete to see which team could make the greater number of mistakes.

On that scoreline England definitely lost as the red card for skipper Farrell will put him out of action until at least the second game of the world cup in France.

England do not have an attacking cutting edge and seem bereft of ideas beyond box-kicking their opponents to death. 

Gatland will have greater cause for optimism as players like Liam Williams and Dan Biggar seem to be hitting good form but his team do not seem to have the players or game to challenge the world’s best sides.

England’s brainless final quarter saw a 9-3 lead overtaken by a penalty try and swashbuckling Tomos Williams touch-down as an otherwise lifeless encounter exploded into life the moment Freddie Steward took Josh Adams out in the air in the 60th minute.

With Farrell off it gave the fly-half reins to George Ford and England’s attack and decision-making improved.

With the Springboks next up for Wales, Gatland was forthright about what he expects from his side. 

“We thought we were good last week, but we weren’t up to the mark today. We need to be a lot better next week.”

England travel to Ireland this weekend, a fixture fans will watch from behind the sofa.