sport

Wales romp to Six Nations glory

Wales produced a rousing performance to romp to a 30-3 win over England in Cardiff to steal the Six Nations title.

The Millennium Stadium was rocking from start to finish as Wales pulled out a display full of passion and intensity, but also clinical finishing in the form of winger Alex Cutherbert who went in for two second-half tries.

Wales needed an eight-point win to be absolutely sure of clinching the title from under England's noses, but they got on the front foot from the start and handled the occasion far better than Stuart Lancaster's visitors.

A bone-crunching first half was played a 100 miles per hour for the full 40 minutes, with tackles flying in but just four penalties to show for it - three from Leigh Halfpenny and one from Owen Farrell making it a 9-3 lead for the hosts.

Wales had success all day at the breakdown and their dominance at the scrum and the ruck led to their two tries from Cuthbert, and Dan Biggar added a drop-goal and penalty to stretch the margin of victory.

Wales had the better of the early exchanges, especially at the breakdown, and their higher intensity forced England into giving away an unusually high number of penalties - the first of which Halfpenny converted inside ten minutes.

Halfpenny booted a kick for 6-0 on 18 minutes after another silly England penalty, but almost immediately Wales did likewise and Farrell just about converted via the right post.

A third Halfpenny penalty made it 9-3, and Farrell then missed from out on the left as the gap remained at six points and England remained under pressure both at the scrum and the breakdown.

Mike Brown saved England's bacon on the half hour as Biggar picked off ben Youngs' risky pass and sent George North flying through the middle before Brown's desperate tap tackle brought down the big winger.

Wales were again the aggressors after the restart, with referee Steve Walsh also taking a disliking to the England scrum, but there was nothing wrong with their goal line defence as they held out a concerted Welsh attack through the phases to limit them to another penalty.

The momentum was still with Wales and they made it count with their first try on 57 minutes when the ball came loose at a ruck on halfway and a lightning break ended with Cuthbert proving too fast and strong for Brown to dive in at the right.

Halfpenny missed the conversion but 17-3 was a convincing lead, and a missed penalty from Farrell seemed to sum up England's day as Biggar then slotted a drop-goal to extend the advantage for Wales to 20-3.

Cuthbert was on the end of things again following a powerful Sam Warburton break and clever dummy from Justin Tipuric to almost blow the closed roof off the Millennium Stadium.

Update:

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what do you think?

1 comment

Mike

9:29am on 17/3/2013

All credit to an inspired Welsh team. They outplayed England in every department. Front five, back row, halfback and the other backs all came off best against an English team which was courageous but lacking some of the basic skills. The English case was not helped by having two wingers who should not have been there. Ashton is right out of form and can't tackle anyway, and Browne is playing out of position - he should play at fullback in place of Gould. The referee clearly saw things not immediately apparent to the unbiased watcher and his decisions, and particularly those penalties in the first 15 minutes or so, left a bad taste even after such a pulsating match. Something must be done to sort out the scrums if these arbitrary decisions and the amount of time wasting pedantry is to be avoided.

Score: 2