Wales 19-9 England

Wales displayed their impressive defensive as they beat England in their latest World Cup warm-up game at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Both teams were much changed from last week’s encounter between the sides at Twickenham, in which England triumphed 23-19.

As well as the scoreboard, the style of the game was very different to that witnessed at Twickenham. This week, in what was a much tighter, forward-dominated game, England dominated both possession and territory but were restricted to three Toby Flood penalties.

Wales grabbed the game’s only try, through James Hook, who converted the try himself and also notched two penalties; the talented Rhys Priestland also kicked a pair of penalty kicks.

Wales’ try, which was the result of an excellent, patient build-up, was scored with what seemed to be their first second-half foray into England’s 22.

After phase after phase of stretching the English defence, Hook crashed over to give Wales what was at that stage a four-point cushion. But England head coach Martin Johnson will be scratching his head as to how his team had failed to establish more of a lead before Hook touched down.

From midway through the first half, England looked like they were simply biding their time until they made the breakthrough – at which stage, you felt, the floodgates could open.

A series of five-metre scrummages were broken up by the Millennium Stadium turf and Welsh infringements came to nothing; a sloppy failure to control the ball at the back of the scrum meant that England had thrown away the chance of a penalty try that referee Alain Rolland had looked set to award.

Little Shane Williams played a crucial part, causing Matt Banahan to spill the ball forward just as he attempted to pile over in the corner.

In total, England made ten visits to the Welsh 22, and yet scored on not one of them. And that was even despite the fact that, for twenty minutes, Wales were forced to play with fourteen men, with Jamie Roberts and Mike Phillips both spending time in the sin bin.

Wales conceded sixteen penalties, a large number, but is to be expected when they spent the majority of the game defending their line.

Very impressively – and pleasing to head coach Warren Gatland and defensive coach Shaun Edwards – Wales missed just two tackles all game, making over 130. That statistic represents an incredible effort by the Welsh, who were again led admirably by man-of-the-match Sam Warburton.

Wales will be naturally concerned that they could barely take a hold of possession, and will be concerned that the more clinical southern hemisphere teams will not be as wasteful as were England.

Johnson will have much thinking to do before the World Cup kicks off in just under four weeks. Gatland, by contrast, will be much boosted by this win.

And with South Africa losing their second consecutive Tri-Nations match in demoralising fashion – yesterday’s 14-9 home defeat to Australia followed a 40-7 thumping by New Zealand a fortnight ago – Wales will be growing in confidence for their opening encounter, against the Springboks, in Wellington on 11th September.