SIX NATIONS WALES V ENGLAND: Wales v England:THERE WILL be bigger matches this year than Wales versus England at the Millennium Stadium this evening. Rugby World Cups, for better or worse, remain the acid test of a team's qualities. For 80 minutes tonight, nevertheless, the future can take care of itself.
“If the World Cup was this year or two years away I wouldn’t feel any different,” said England coach Martin Johnson yesterday. “This is a huge game. This is what you grow up watching as a rugby fan.”
As one of the few men to have hoisted the Webb Ellis trophy aloft, Johnson is not given to casual hyperbole. Yet along with everyone else he can sense desperation dripping down the walls of the home dressingroom, mixed with the scent of red rose opportunity. It is eight years since England, under Johnson’s captaincy, last crossed the Severn Bridge as favourites to win this evocative 130-year-old fixture. Eradicate the stench of defeat which has hung over them on their last three visits and the implications for both nations, not to mention the 2011 Six Nations, will be profound.
Apart from everything else, this evening’s floodlit spectacle will define England under Johnson’s stewardship. November was a contradictory month, from the breathless high of Australia to the bruising low of their South African mugging. Only one member of their starting XV, new captain Mike Tindall, knows what a Test victory in Cardiff feels like.
To win well, away from home at the venue which Johnson rates as the most hostile in Europe, would transform this youthful England squad’s psychological outlook.
That is not to say England, even with three Twickenham home games to follow, will be nailed-on champions should victory materialise. But listening to Johnson and Tindall in Bagshot, shortly before they relocated down the M4, was to be transported back to the Clive Woodward era when the dragon’s den was a frequent English playground.
“There’s certainly a belief that we can play against anyone and be successful,” confirmed Johnson, looking as quietly confident as at any stage in his two-and-a-half-year tenure.
Tindall says the camp is as buoyant as at any stage in recent seasons. “Everyone’s happy in each other’s company. I know that sounds a little thing but it makes a massive difference. It translates into people fighting that little bit harder for the guy next to you.”
Warren Gatland will hardly be broken-hearted to hear such sentiments; English hubris can nourish Welshmen as surely as the bread of heaven. Gatland’s players will be visualising a very different scenario, one in which the reshuffled visiting lineout falls apart and Wales’ blitz defence dismantles their opponents’ game plan.
Would Matthew Rees, Bradley Davies, Alun Wyn Jones and Sam Warburton make it into a combined Anglo-Welsh pack? Quite possibly. Why, then, should the home backs not back themselves to exploit the odd gap in England’s midfield as clinically as New Zealand did in the autumn?
Will England, without Courtney Lawes, Tom Croft and Lewis Moody, be as dynamically robust and athletic as they could be? If not, a first Welsh win in 10 months is far from out of the question.
But strip away the passion, the noise, the weather – Johnson says England will agree to the roof being closed if the forecast wind and rain is bad enough – and the rich historical narrative and England fancy themselves if, as Tindall emphasised, they can withstand the gale-force assault of the opening 20 minutes. They have a potentially superior scrum and a hardening desire.
Every day, every hour, Johnson hammers away at the essence of international rugby: the side who maintain their accuracy and discipline will almost certainly win.
* Guardian Service
