England fell foul of a trend that started in the 90s, the Welsh start slowly, before steadily improving as a tournament progresses
The 2013 Six Nations may have fizzled and spluttered for the most part, but there was fire at the end. Not since 1978, when Wales met France in a memorable encounter on the final day with both sides chasing the grand slam, has a Cardiff crowd generated such an atmosphere.
Wales had insisted in the build-up to the match that their experience of the big day would be telling, two grand slams since 2008 and a World Cup semi-final, although at the time they attributed their strong showing in the 2011 tournament in New Zealand to their decision to play a number of young players who were not carrying the scars of failure. But what also told was that they had steadily improved during the tournament, starting off with a home defeat to Ireland, while England's performances had gradually diminished after their opening day thumping of Scotland.
Wales have developed a habit of stepping into the Six Nations gently. It was a feature of Graham Henry's reign from the end of the 1990s; before that, they had tended to start badly and finish worse. In 2008, Warren Gatland's first season in charge, the opening match of their grand slam against England at Twickenham may have been beyond them at half-time but for Huw Bennett's try-saving tackle on Paul Sackey just before the interval.
Outplayed in the first-half, they rallied in the second. The following year, they enjoyed a comfortable victory on the opening weekend in Scotland, but in 2010 and 2011, they lost to England and in 2012, another grand slam year, they were behind against Ireland with two minutes to go when they were awarded a disputed penalty that Leigh Halfpenny kicked.
The best time to play Wales is first up. They have lost three of their opening fixtures in the last six years out of eight defeats, always bouncing back because they have not been beaten on the second weekend. They have tended to get stronger the longer a tournament goes on, although 2011 was an exception, when they were well beaten in Paris on the last day.
The theme of poor starters and strong finishers also applies to Wales during matches. They scored 21 of their 122 points in the first quarter, 16 in the second, 42 in the third and 43 in the last. The points they conceded shrank from 25 in the opening 20 minutes and 22 in the next, to 16 in the third and then three, a penalty kicked by Greig Laidlaw after an hour in Scotland.
Wales won every second half with a combined points total of 85 with 19 against, the latter tally including just one try, while eight of Wales's nine tries came after the interval. A feature of their 2011 World Cup campaign was their ability to finish matches strongly; after their opening game against South Africa, the next time they conceded points in the final quarter was against Australia in the third-place play-off.
England had only conceded once in the last quarter before last Saturday, against Scotland in their first match, but they scored the majority of their 94 points in the first half of matches and conceded most after the break. This figure was inflated by their defeat in Cardiff, even though three of their five tries came during the 20 minutes after half-time.
Wales had attributed their conditioning last year and in 2011 to spending time at training camps in Poland before the tournaments, using ice treatments to get hot, but they stayed at home this year, not least because a number of their players would not have been available for a whole week in Spala because they had to return to their clubs in France and England.
It is unlikely that Wales will be going to Poland next year. Although Gethin Jenkins is rejoining Cardiff Blues from Toulon, Jamie Roberts and Dan Lydiate are bound for France and George North is a target for Northampton and other clubs. The success of Wales at international level, at least in Europe, continues to be in contrast to the impact made by their four regions in cross-border cup competitions.
The Wales squad, at least those based in the country, will be able to warm down in the final two months of the season, while their English and Irish counterparts will be operating at a fuller throttle. Wales, it is being assumed, will form the majority of the Lions' team in the first Test against the Wallabies. If only it were so simple.
When Warren Gatland was announced as the Lions head coach last September, he said he regarded how the unions got on in the autumn internationals as more instructive than how they went in the Six Nations. Wales may have produced their most compelling performance in years last weekend, but they have not beaten a major southern hemisphere team since the end of 2008 and they have lost six Tests out of six against Australia in the past 18 months.
England defeated New Zealand last December, won a Test in Australia in the Martin Johnson era and drew in South Africa last year. They faded after winning in the Dublin rain, as if struggling to cope with expectation once the words grand and slam started to be put to them but more practically struggling behind once France, followed by Italy and Wales, profited at the breakdown and quick ball became scarce, reducing Alex Goode's effectiveness as a second receiver from full-back.
It took a flanker, Justin Tipuric, to bring a flourish to Wales's back division. "Jamie Roberts said there is more to come from us attack-wise, which is obvious, and we have to kick on now," said the Wales prop, Adam Jones. "When we have won grand slams, we have always made a mess of the next year."
Jones is regarded as the favourite to be the tight-head in the first Lions Test, and some of Wales's problems last autumn stemmed from his absence, but a feature of tours past has been the combinations across the nations, many unforeseen: think Tom Smith and Paul Wallace in the front row in South Africa in 1997, Jamie Roberts at 12 four years ago with Brian O'Driscoll at 13 and Jeremy Guscott in tandem with Scott Hastings in 1989.
Ian McGeechan was the master of imagining permutations and, as he said this week, thinks less of how any player may have under-performed this championship and more about how much more effective he would be as part of a stronger unit.
*Northern blights*
The whole of Wales, so we are told, was made up on Saturday night (not sure the 19,000 Swansea City supporters at the Liberty Stadium were that thrilled about watching a team in red defeat one in white), so much so that some were claiming that their side could beat anyone, not just England. Bring on the All Blacks.
The website rugbyshirts.net had a slightly different take, treating a "nation's" hangover by setting off a fire alarm. "If Wales are the best Europe have to offer, I feel sorry for northern hemisphere rugby fans," ran the headline to a polemic by Ian Ebbs.
His stance was that the match between Wales and England showed how little the game in Europe had evolved, interesting but lacking in skill. "Neither side looked likely to create anything from scratch on attack and both sides made the other look better than they really were in defence," he wrote. "The game consisted of backlines running aimlessly sideways, kickers who could not see past simply lofting the ball as high as they could and hoping for the best, and forwards who were woefully inept at the breakdown."
That was the complimentary bit. "While the game was full of drama and passion, it featured all the skills of an amateur club match in New Zealand, and having watched Wales and England do battle, I am not surprised the Six Nations champions could not beat Samoa at home.
"Sure, the English may have played out of their skins to beat the All Blacks at the end of last year, but they needed the help of a virus doing the rounds at the world champions' hotel to do so. If the European sides have any hope in 2015, they may have to rely on the southern hemisphere sides forgetting to get their flu jabs before they fly over."
Hyperbolic maybe, but not baseless. If the Lions are to win the series in Australia, they will – as they did in South Africa four years ago, although narrowly losing the first two Tests – have to rise above the skill level of the home unions in the Six Nations. Kick and clap may not quite have turned into kick and crap, but where is the sense of adventure?
England complained about the refereeing of Steve Walsh, both at the scrum and at the breakdown, an area which saw six direct turnovers,dampening their protestation that the official turned it into a non-contest zone. There were three to each side, but England became more conservative as the tournament went on, finding themselves on the back foot. It was the Welsh, not Walsh, wot beat them.
*Numbers don't add up*
Voting is taking place for the player of the Six Nations, with 15 names to choose from on the tournament's official website.
The process of picking names has evolved from those who were named man of the match, but it still leaves some questionable omissions. That's mainly because the criteria is now stats based, although why Owen Farrell was included on the basis he was the most talked about player across social media is not made clear: what if all the comments had been pejorative?
"Mathieu Bastareaud had a pass completion rate of 100%." Aside from the suspicion that he had only made one pass, he started three of his side's five matches – and did Wesley Fofana's two tries count for less?
Conor Murray completed 262 passes. So what? Ireland made thousands of passes at Murrayfield, but still lost to a Scotland side that only touched the ball a couple of times.
And then there is Adam Jones, destroyer of the English, Scottish and Italian scrums in the final rounds. His citation? Missing only one tackle.
No mention for Ryan Jones, although like Bastareaud he only started three matches, the man who played a major role in not only helping end Wales's run of eight defeats, but in creating the launch-pad for last Saturday's championship success.
When the basis for picking the shortlist is so impersonal, is the award worth having? Andrea Masi stood out in Italy's back division, but he is among the 15 because "he collected the ball 26 times". From a ball boy? If a basis of the award is receiving 26 passes, then every back should be in line for it; then again, maybe not.
*The caps fit*
Wales went into the game against England with a cap advantage of more than two to one and a difference of 357.
England did not have one player in their starting line-up who had reached 50 caps; Wales had five. Stuart Lancaster, looking forward to the 2015 World Cup which is being hosted by England, has based on selection policy in the last two seasons on his team averaging 50-odd caps by the time the tournament starts.
If experience wins World Cups, Wales may be among the favourites. All their starting line-up last Saturday should still be around in 2015. Prop Adam Jones will be 34 then and Gethin Jenkins will be 35 a few weeks after the final, while scrum-half Mike Phillips will be 33, but they are the only ones for whom the clock is ticking.
Leigh Halfpenny, Alex Cuthbert, Jonathan Davies, Jamie Roberts, George North, Dan Biggar, Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Toby Faletau will all still in their 20s, while Alun Wyn Jones turns 30 just before the start of the tournament. They could potentially field a team in the World Cup that boasts 1,000-plus caps.
Incidentally, Saturday's match programme, while it had the right team-sheet at the back, had the pen portraits of the line-ups who had appeared the previous week, Wales in Scotland and England against Italy, with one exception.
The injured Ryan Jones was not included, but the decision to replace him as captain with Gethin Jenkins was taken too late for the prop to be included in the pen portraits. As he had missed the trip to Murrayfield with a calf strain, his mug was not in the programme, while the man of the match, Justin Tipuric, was included among the replacements. Just as well the players did not have to pay £5 for the souvenir.
*O'Driscoll pays stamp duty*
Brian O'Driscoll was this week suspended for three weeks after his stamp on Simone Favaro in Rome last week was deemed worthy of a red card – he will miss Leinster's Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final against Wasps next month.
Unlike his compatriot Cian Healy, who was cited for what looked a more serious case of stamping on the ankle of the England prop Dan Cole last month, three weeks will mean three matches for the Ireland centre.
Healy missed only one match he would have played in and perhaps the Six Nations committee has exercised a measure of revenge over O'Driscoll for an offence that fell in the orange category, not worth a red but deserving of more than a yellow.
O'Driscoll faced a disciplinary panel after being cited. If his stamp, more a tread, on the body of Favore was deemed worthy of a sending off, why was nothing done about Owen Farrell's off-the-ball elbow in the face of the France scrum-half Morgan Parra last month?
The disciplinary system has become the off-the-field equivalent of a scrum.
*Still want more?*
Six Nations 2013: Our writers' awards
Paul Rees: How to save our scrum
Robert Kitson on why the Welsh will dominate Lions selection Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 days ago.
The 2013 Six Nations may have fizzled and spluttered for the most part, but there was fire at the end. Not since 1978, when Wales met France in a memorable encounter on the final day with both sides chasing the grand slam, has a Cardiff crowd generated such an atmosphere.
Wales had insisted in the build-up to the match that their experience of the big day would be telling, two grand slams since 2008 and a World Cup semi-final, although at the time they attributed their strong showing in the 2011 tournament in New Zealand to their decision to play a number of young players who were not carrying the scars of failure. But what also told was that they had steadily improved during the tournament, starting off with a home defeat to Ireland, while England's performances had gradually diminished after their opening day thumping of Scotland.
Wales have developed a habit of stepping into the Six Nations gently. It was a feature of Graham Henry's reign from the end of the 1990s; before that, they had tended to start badly and finish worse. In 2008, Warren Gatland's first season in charge, the opening match of their grand slam against England at Twickenham may have been beyond them at half-time but for Huw Bennett's try-saving tackle on Paul Sackey just before the interval.
Outplayed in the first-half, they rallied in the second. The following year, they enjoyed a comfortable victory on the opening weekend in Scotland, but in 2010 and 2011, they lost to England and in 2012, another grand slam year, they were behind against Ireland with two minutes to go when they were awarded a disputed penalty that Leigh Halfpenny kicked.
The best time to play Wales is first up. They have lost three of their opening fixtures in the last six years out of eight defeats, always bouncing back because they have not been beaten on the second weekend. They have tended to get stronger the longer a tournament goes on, although 2011 was an exception, when they were well beaten in Paris on the last day.
The theme of poor starters and strong finishers also applies to Wales during matches. They scored 21 of their 122 points in the first quarter, 16 in the second, 42 in the third and 43 in the last. The points they conceded shrank from 25 in the opening 20 minutes and 22 in the next, to 16 in the third and then three, a penalty kicked by Greig Laidlaw after an hour in Scotland.
Wales won every second half with a combined points total of 85 with 19 against, the latter tally including just one try, while eight of Wales's nine tries came after the interval. A feature of their 2011 World Cup campaign was their ability to finish matches strongly; after their opening game against South Africa, the next time they conceded points in the final quarter was against Australia in the third-place play-off.
England had only conceded once in the last quarter before last Saturday, against Scotland in their first match, but they scored the majority of their 94 points in the first half of matches and conceded most after the break. This figure was inflated by their defeat in Cardiff, even though three of their five tries came during the 20 minutes after half-time.
Wales had attributed their conditioning last year and in 2011 to spending time at training camps in Poland before the tournaments, using ice treatments to get hot, but they stayed at home this year, not least because a number of their players would not have been available for a whole week in Spala because they had to return to their clubs in France and England.
It is unlikely that Wales will be going to Poland next year. Although Gethin Jenkins is rejoining Cardiff Blues from Toulon, Jamie Roberts and Dan Lydiate are bound for France and George North is a target for Northampton and other clubs. The success of Wales at international level, at least in Europe, continues to be in contrast to the impact made by their four regions in cross-border cup competitions.
The Wales squad, at least those based in the country, will be able to warm down in the final two months of the season, while their English and Irish counterparts will be operating at a fuller throttle. Wales, it is being assumed, will form the majority of the Lions' team in the first Test against the Wallabies. If only it were so simple.
When Warren Gatland was announced as the Lions head coach last September, he said he regarded how the unions got on in the autumn internationals as more instructive than how they went in the Six Nations. Wales may have produced their most compelling performance in years last weekend, but they have not beaten a major southern hemisphere team since the end of 2008 and they have lost six Tests out of six against Australia in the past 18 months.
England defeated New Zealand last December, won a Test in Australia in the Martin Johnson era and drew in South Africa last year. They faded after winning in the Dublin rain, as if struggling to cope with expectation once the words grand and slam started to be put to them but more practically struggling behind once France, followed by Italy and Wales, profited at the breakdown and quick ball became scarce, reducing Alex Goode's effectiveness as a second receiver from full-back.
It took a flanker, Justin Tipuric, to bring a flourish to Wales's back division. "Jamie Roberts said there is more to come from us attack-wise, which is obvious, and we have to kick on now," said the Wales prop, Adam Jones. "When we have won grand slams, we have always made a mess of the next year."
Jones is regarded as the favourite to be the tight-head in the first Lions Test, and some of Wales's problems last autumn stemmed from his absence, but a feature of tours past has been the combinations across the nations, many unforeseen: think Tom Smith and Paul Wallace in the front row in South Africa in 1997, Jamie Roberts at 12 four years ago with Brian O'Driscoll at 13 and Jeremy Guscott in tandem with Scott Hastings in 1989.
Ian McGeechan was the master of imagining permutations and, as he said this week, thinks less of how any player may have under-performed this championship and more about how much more effective he would be as part of a stronger unit.
*Northern blights*
The whole of Wales, so we are told, was made up on Saturday night (not sure the 19,000 Swansea City supporters at the Liberty Stadium were that thrilled about watching a team in red defeat one in white), so much so that some were claiming that their side could beat anyone, not just England. Bring on the All Blacks.
The website rugbyshirts.net had a slightly different take, treating a "nation's" hangover by setting off a fire alarm. "If Wales are the best Europe have to offer, I feel sorry for northern hemisphere rugby fans," ran the headline to a polemic by Ian Ebbs.
His stance was that the match between Wales and England showed how little the game in Europe had evolved, interesting but lacking in skill. "Neither side looked likely to create anything from scratch on attack and both sides made the other look better than they really were in defence," he wrote. "The game consisted of backlines running aimlessly sideways, kickers who could not see past simply lofting the ball as high as they could and hoping for the best, and forwards who were woefully inept at the breakdown."
That was the complimentary bit. "While the game was full of drama and passion, it featured all the skills of an amateur club match in New Zealand, and having watched Wales and England do battle, I am not surprised the Six Nations champions could not beat Samoa at home.
"Sure, the English may have played out of their skins to beat the All Blacks at the end of last year, but they needed the help of a virus doing the rounds at the world champions' hotel to do so. If the European sides have any hope in 2015, they may have to rely on the southern hemisphere sides forgetting to get their flu jabs before they fly over."
Hyperbolic maybe, but not baseless. If the Lions are to win the series in Australia, they will – as they did in South Africa four years ago, although narrowly losing the first two Tests – have to rise above the skill level of the home unions in the Six Nations. Kick and clap may not quite have turned into kick and crap, but where is the sense of adventure?
England complained about the refereeing of Steve Walsh, both at the scrum and at the breakdown, an area which saw six direct turnovers,dampening their protestation that the official turned it into a non-contest zone. There were three to each side, but England became more conservative as the tournament went on, finding themselves on the back foot. It was the Welsh, not Walsh, wot beat them.
*Numbers don't add up*
Voting is taking place for the player of the Six Nations, with 15 names to choose from on the tournament's official website.
The process of picking names has evolved from those who were named man of the match, but it still leaves some questionable omissions. That's mainly because the criteria is now stats based, although why Owen Farrell was included on the basis he was the most talked about player across social media is not made clear: what if all the comments had been pejorative?
"Mathieu Bastareaud had a pass completion rate of 100%." Aside from the suspicion that he had only made one pass, he started three of his side's five matches – and did Wesley Fofana's two tries count for less?
Conor Murray completed 262 passes. So what? Ireland made thousands of passes at Murrayfield, but still lost to a Scotland side that only touched the ball a couple of times.
And then there is Adam Jones, destroyer of the English, Scottish and Italian scrums in the final rounds. His citation? Missing only one tackle.
No mention for Ryan Jones, although like Bastareaud he only started three matches, the man who played a major role in not only helping end Wales's run of eight defeats, but in creating the launch-pad for last Saturday's championship success.
When the basis for picking the shortlist is so impersonal, is the award worth having? Andrea Masi stood out in Italy's back division, but he is among the 15 because "he collected the ball 26 times". From a ball boy? If a basis of the award is receiving 26 passes, then every back should be in line for it; then again, maybe not.
*The caps fit*
Wales went into the game against England with a cap advantage of more than two to one and a difference of 357.
England did not have one player in their starting line-up who had reached 50 caps; Wales had five. Stuart Lancaster, looking forward to the 2015 World Cup which is being hosted by England, has based on selection policy in the last two seasons on his team averaging 50-odd caps by the time the tournament starts.
If experience wins World Cups, Wales may be among the favourites. All their starting line-up last Saturday should still be around in 2015. Prop Adam Jones will be 34 then and Gethin Jenkins will be 35 a few weeks after the final, while scrum-half Mike Phillips will be 33, but they are the only ones for whom the clock is ticking.
Leigh Halfpenny, Alex Cuthbert, Jonathan Davies, Jamie Roberts, George North, Dan Biggar, Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Toby Faletau will all still in their 20s, while Alun Wyn Jones turns 30 just before the start of the tournament. They could potentially field a team in the World Cup that boasts 1,000-plus caps.
Incidentally, Saturday's match programme, while it had the right team-sheet at the back, had the pen portraits of the line-ups who had appeared the previous week, Wales in Scotland and England against Italy, with one exception.
The injured Ryan Jones was not included, but the decision to replace him as captain with Gethin Jenkins was taken too late for the prop to be included in the pen portraits. As he had missed the trip to Murrayfield with a calf strain, his mug was not in the programme, while the man of the match, Justin Tipuric, was included among the replacements. Just as well the players did not have to pay £5 for the souvenir.
*O'Driscoll pays stamp duty*
Brian O'Driscoll was this week suspended for three weeks after his stamp on Simone Favaro in Rome last week was deemed worthy of a red card – he will miss Leinster's Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final against Wasps next month.
Unlike his compatriot Cian Healy, who was cited for what looked a more serious case of stamping on the ankle of the England prop Dan Cole last month, three weeks will mean three matches for the Ireland centre.
Healy missed only one match he would have played in and perhaps the Six Nations committee has exercised a measure of revenge over O'Driscoll for an offence that fell in the orange category, not worth a red but deserving of more than a yellow.
O'Driscoll faced a disciplinary panel after being cited. If his stamp, more a tread, on the body of Favore was deemed worthy of a sending off, why was nothing done about Owen Farrell's off-the-ball elbow in the face of the France scrum-half Morgan Parra last month?
The disciplinary system has become the off-the-field equivalent of a scrum.
*Still want more?*
Six Nations 2013: Our writers' awards
Paul Rees: How to save our scrum
Robert Kitson on why the Welsh will dominate Lions selection Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 days ago.