England overcame stubborn Welsh resistance at the Milennium Stadium last night in the first match of this year's Six Nations' Rugby competition. As this is a World Cup year, this tournament is more about honing the sides for the much more significant games to come later in the year, nonetheless, neither side wanted to lose this opening encounter.
While it was a victory for England, assessing the team's performance is not easy. The final margin of victory - 26-19 - was hardly emphatic and at no point did England really threaten to pull away, other than when Wales were a man short. England were solid, which is praise of a sort, but were not exactly exciting; they took their chances well, but there were precious few of them and the rolling maul near the end was a serious disappointment as the Welsh forwards eventually prevailed. The studio commentary team seemed to be rather contradicting themselves when they told us that the Welsh had offered little but that England had done very well - the score does not quite back this up.
In truth, the game told us little about the ability of England other than that they were better, just, than Wales on the night. Had the Welsh not missed 2 kickable penalities, it may have been a different story and England could, today be wondering how to rebuild for the World Cup. As it is, Toby Flood was a deserved man of the match and Jonny Wilkinson sealed the win with a final penalty; Chris Ashton's tries were taken well, Mike Tindall and Ben Foden provided powerful defence and the forwards worked hard and, mostly, effectively. There was, however, very little that was inspiring or that suggested this side can challenge the French, let alone the boys from south of the equator.
Let's hope that this game was simply a starting point, designed to brush away the cobwebs, and that we will be more convincing in the remaining matches.
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