WITH a Welsh missus and loads of mates from there, no one needs to tell me what beating England means to them.
So it goes without saying how they’d love nothing more than to see it happen at Twickenham on Saturday.
GettyJason Robinson is struggling to pick a winner between England and Wales[/caption]
AlamyWales visit Twickenham in the second round of this year’s Six Nations on Sunday[/caption]
It’s been one of the great love-hate sporting rivalries for so many years, and always a tough one to call, whatever the state of the teams.
After the opening Six Nations games, no one can predict any outcome with confidence. What a first round!
England may have won, but — and no disrespect here — everyone expected Italy to be their easiest game. For me, it’s one they should have been winning by a couple of scores.
In the end, they did so by three points and were outscored three tries to two.
The positive for England is that they got four points. The negative is they will have gone into it expecting five.
Coach Steve Borthwick knows there must be a massive step up from Rome.
Wales’ loss to Scotland was the ultimate game of two halves.
Smashed for 27 points without reply in the first half, then scoring 26 to get within a point in the second.
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If they play like they did after half-time in Cardiff at Twickenham, it could be a tough old day for England.
There were good points last week, especially Ethan Roots having such a big game on his England debut, and it was a huge day for Jamie George in his first game as captain.
With five debutants, it was always going to be a challenge, and the backline did at least try a few things. Yet the defence got caught out too many times and scoring tries is still an Achilles heel.
The days when teams came to Twickenham fearing the worst have gone — now they think, ‘If we get this right we can beat them’. But I do fancy England to edge it at home.
Yet I can see a shock this weekend because if Scotland perform as they did in the first half in Cardiff, they can upset the French.
The Scots will be massively disappointed at nearly throwing it away. If they start well, in front of their own fans, they’ll fancy themselves.
Finn Russell will pull the strings again, Duhan van der Merwe already has two tries, and France need a massive turnaround after losing to the Irish.
None of us saw that 38-17 result coming. The big question beforehand was could Ireland cope without Johnny Sexton? Well, no one is asking that now.
No team has ever won back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams but it would take a brave man to bet against Ireland becoming the first this year.
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