25-02-2012

Wales win the 6 nations Triple Crown

Welsh victories in Twickenham  England's HQ are very, very rare. It was with the belief that they could win that Wales took the field today, and certainly for the opening 20 minutes pressure and open running rugby backed up the belief. It came as a shock when Wales failed to take advantage of this pressure by missing a penalty, only to see England score from a penalty on 24 minutes. from this time onward Wales were always behind by between 3 and 6 points, but fortunately not too far adrift. 

More England pressure in the second half and with the loss of a player to the 'sin bin' Wales dug in and played a controlled game, not only avoiding any points being scored against them, but also scoring a further penalty leveling up the score..... on 74 minutes Scott Williams making his debut smuggled the ball from the English forwards in front  of their posts, kicked ahead, caught his own kick going over to score, Halfpenny's conversion seemed to seal the win..... however as the clock ticked over 80 minutes, England got the ball over the Welsh line..... the video referee decided that the try had not been scored, time was up... WALES had won in Twickenham  taking the Triple Crown :-)

( all images above from the BBC Sport website) ..... not a pretty game, and the boys certainly kept all those watching on the edge of their seats..... next up the revenge match against France following the defeat suffered in the Semi Finals of the World Cup in New Zealand last year.

13-02-2012

On Sunday afternoon in an emotional and passionate game, the Celtic giants of Wales and Scotland met on the hallowed rugby turf of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The game was open as both teams player expansive fast running rugby. The first half ebbed and flowed and at half time the score was 3-3 with only two penalties having been scored.
In the second half Wales exerted pressure and eventually to dour Scottish defence cracked with a few poor fouls leading to yellow cards being shown. Wales have been notoriously bad at scoring when their opposition is 'men down' ( incidentally Wales are also the team who have the most points scored against them with reduced numbers), however in this match the home side pressed their advantage with the points coming freely. Wales had pulled out a 27 points to 13 lead with 10 minutes left, they managed to hold this advantage until the final whistle. Scotland were unlucky, having clear advantage to score on at least two occasions, sadly failing to convert this pressure into points.
There are still areas of the game which welsh fans would expect to improve, chief of these are the 'flaky' lineout, dodgy scrum ahead of the match against England at Twickenham next weekend.