This Saturday saw one of the greatest matches of rugby I’ve ever seen, both England & Wales went for it, in this match you saw two teams determined for victory & a desire not to lose. Unfortunately for England they where the losers . Since Saturday fans, players & pundits have had their thoughts on how it was won & lost I have drawn my conclusion to this & here it is.

How did Wales win?

If I’m being completely honest I did not expect Wales to win with Leigh Halfpenny being injured i thought the spine of this great team was broken because he normally kicks about fifteen points every time he plays. IMO Wales won this match through sheer heart desire & the will to win. Every time England started to get away Wales brought it back to seven points & always kept themselves in the match, I’ve always belived that to beat Wales you have to kill the game because they are like Rocky Balboa you knock them down only for them to get back up & take more. Wales have one of the best team spirits ever, even when four players went off injured they still wouldn’t quit. Sam Warburton proved how great a captain he is & led by example in the way he tackled & refused to quit, even when he was down Warburton got back up & that you you can only admire. I can point out many other players but one that also stood out was Dan Beggar the man who kicked in the place of injured Halfpenny, every time he kicked he looked ice cold & knew what he was doing & kicked the ball with confidence, his performance was a great one & Leigh Halfpenny might have some competition when he comes back. Final bit of praise has to go to Warren Gatland who proved once his doubters wrong, again his team’s might not play exciting rugby at times but as a Wasps fan I can say I always knew he was good & any team will want him In the future.

How England lost it?

When I look back at how England lost on Saturday there isn’t a lot of bad things I can really say, the feeling i had was that they played well controlled the first half & early second half. The only reason I can perhaps come up with as to why England lost was that they didn’t continue their domination after about the 60th minute after that. You sensed Wales where coming back into the game but England weren’t keeping them back. In terms of the selection you couldn’t have a go at Stuart Lancaster who didn’t have the option of Jonathan Joseph through injury & wanted to play with strength players in Sam Burgess & Owen Farrell who played well together in the pre game matches. As for Farrell’s kicking he got points for all of them so I wouldn’t have a go at him, when you look at it some people have tried to criticise Captain Chris Robshaw for deciding to go for the line out to get a try rather than decide to have George Ford to kick for a penalty & bring the team’s level. For that i would say that anyone who wants to win would have done the exact same thing. With the game against Australia coming up England & Stuart Lancaster need to come up with a strategy & game plan that will stop the Aussies from storming through the forwards line, the hope would be that Chris Robshaw does not let the critics get to him & prove how good of a captain he is or could become. For Stuart Lancaster he has to look at what he has got & make a firm decision on who he believes are the best players to go out there in Twickenham on Saturday night & come away with victory over the Aussies otherwise it will be game over for England & the hopes once again of a nation will die. Whatever happens from now till the end of this tournament it’s definitely shaping up to be a great one.