Ford puts England on the front foot
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There was a moment six minutes into the second-half which summed up England. Courtney Lawes stole a lineout near Wales's line, prime attacking ball with the opposition not set up in defence.
England had laboured to create openings, despite the promptings of Owen Farrell who mixed up his game from the outset, but here was the opportunity to extend their lead to 13 points, wake up the crowd and leave Wales with it all to do.
England failed to react. No one took charge, Wales helped themselves to the ball and won a penalty. Having failed to score a try in Cardiff the previous week, England offered no threat until, with three players in the sin-bin, they kicked a penalty to touch and rolled a maul over the line to seize the momentum.
Steve Borthwick said afterwards it was a victory for spirit and character, which it was. But had Wales had any sort of a lineout, it would not have been enough. “I did not feel they put us under a huge amount of pressure from an attacking perspective,” said Wales's head coach Warren Gatland. “We shot ourselves in the foot.”
Borthwick made the point afterwards that moulding an attack took longer than shaping a defence or calibrating the set-pieces. Eddie Jones used to say the same, but it is one thing to execute moves and another to improvise and react off the cuff.
England have for too long been a team comfortable in structure but horribly slow to react as if programmed to the point where instinct is expelled. They were at their most effective in the final 15 minutes when confronted by adversity with captain Farrell waiting for his yellow card to be upgraded to a red for a high tackle on Taine Basham that may see him banned for the first two matches of the World Cup.
George Ford was already at outside-half having come on for the wing Henry Arundell whose pace had been talked about by England in the build-up but, other than a yellow card for not retreating after Liam Williams claimed a mark and ran out of his 22, he could have been auditioning for the Invisible Man.
Arundell's departure meant a three-pronged reshuffle with Ford at 10, Farrell moving into the midfield and Joe Marchant redeployed on the wing. Why not just take off Farrell, playing his first match since the Gallagher Premiership final?
It was Ford who steadied England, keeping the ball in front of his forwards and exploiting the many mistakes of Wales who, from the moment they went 17-9 up with 16 minutes to go through a breakout try scored by scrum-half Tomos Williams, let their grip on the game go slack.
It was a World Cup warm-up, featuring players making their first appearances for three months. Even longer in the case of No.8 Billy Vunipola who eased his way back in before being replaced on the hour by Jack Willis. His fitness will be crucial if England are to secure the quick possession they need to maximise their attacking opportunities.
Ford said he was 100 per cent confident that England would have their attack fully loaded come the opening World Cup match against Argentina, but it will not be rugby's version of ‘Bazball'. England's cricket captain Ben Stokes has set a target of scoring at five runs an over, which they achieved at times in the recent Ashes series.
Translate that into five tries a match and England are well short.
They have scored two in their last three, both by forwards after driving mauls. They managed one in their previous game. What they are likely to have in the World Cup is some strike plays different to what they have revealed so far, but if they are to be among the contenders they will need to show more wit to make something of turnovers – and they largely had the better of Wales on the floor yesterday.
Is Farrell's impending suspension a blessing rather than a curse?
He has previous when it comes to leading with his shoulder in challenges: he received a four-match ban in January for a challenge on Gloucester's Jack Clement, reduced to three because he attended World Rugby's coaching intervention programme, and in 2020 was given a five-match suspension for a reckless tackle on Wasps' Charlie Atkinson. Four years before, he missed two games after being cited for a dangerous tackle on another Wasps player, Dan Robson.
So England face having to play Argentina and Japan without their captain. The way Ford assumed control yesterday, following Farrell's lead with spiral bombs but with slightly more precision, suggests the way to go for the 2019 beaten finalists.
They cannot pretend to be something they are not. For all that Marcus Smith is in the squad, they are not a reactive side. Ford plays to their strengths in a way Farrell did not yesterday, running out of his own half at times and indulging in some ambitious passes. The looser the game, the more it suited Wales whose lineout was a shambles and scrum not a whole lot better, although Ellis Genge found himself in the sin-bin after yet another of the set-pieces resulted in a penalty.
The point of this month's matches is to prepare teams for France, although it was important for England to win yesterday after a three-match losing streak and the confidence it generated because the comeback started when they were three players down.
They stopped pretending to be something they were not. Borthwick took over after two lean years. He had to both plan for the future and the short-term. England have to become difficult to beat again rather than worry about dusting the top of their cake with icing sugar.
They looked a team in the closing minutes yesterday, fired with a purpose and driven on by Ford. They also looked better conditioned than the previous week, lasting the contest better than Wales who had again mixed and matched. England's strength lies in keeping it simple.
