Injury Struck Wales Knock over England

A vital fixture to the Quarter Finals picture saw the two host nations battling it out at London’s Twickenham Stadium with Wales completing a remarkable win after having suffered further injury set-backs with Hallam Amos, Liam Williams and Scott Williams all forced from the field.

The availability of all three will be determined over the coming days with Wales potentially set to lose all of them, thereby adding to the crisis that has seen Cory Allen, Rhys Webb, Leigh Halfpenny and Eli Walker all injured during the World Cup or in the weeks leading up to the event. The team must now recover to back-up against the ever-dangerous Fiji.

For England, the loss will send shock-waves into English rugby with the hosts now needing to defeat both Australia and Uruguay to avoid being eliminated at the pool stage for the first time in history. The performance gave Head Coach Stuart Lancaster plenty to think about as his back-row was again lacking the mobility required to have a well-oiled system in place.

Dan Biggar opened the scoring in just the 2nd minute when he landed a penalty from a relatively wide angle. Courtney Lawes had been penalised for secruing the ball on the floor after a maul came down. It was a sign of what was to come as referee Jerome Garces had an impressive performance in controlling play.

England’s scrum started strongly, winning penalties on the first two opportunities with the second of which seeing Owen Farrell opening England’s account with a penalty from long range. Biggar cancelled it out by landing his second penalty after Dan Cole was penalised from being off his feet.

Playing the better rugby, England leveled the scores with Farrell landing a well-taken dropgoal before he gave his team the lead in the 24th minute with his second penalty. Aggressive play from England then led to the game’s first try with Jonny May crossing for a score confirmed by the TMO. With neither side scoring again England went into the interval leading 16-9.

Two penalties apiece from Farrell and Biggar in the opening thirteen minutes of the second half brought the scores to 22-15. Farrell would land one more and Biggar two but the difference between the sides came ten minutes from time when Wales appeared dead and burried. Having lost three backs to injury the Welsh somehow managed to pull a rabbit out of their hats and score a match-winning try.

Crossing was scrumhalf Gareth Davies who latched onto a kick which saw Brad Barritt caught horribly out of place. Biggar’s conversion tied the scores and three minutes later Wales had the lead with just five minutes left. As the minutes ran out England opted against kicvking a penalty to level the scores but failed to score. It meant Wales completed a famous win and one to shake-up Pool A.

Scorers
England
Try: May
Conversion: Farrell
Penalty: Farrell (5)
Dropgoal: Farrell

Wales
Try: G Davies
Conversion: Biggar
Penalty: Biggar (7)

England
15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Brad Barritt, 12 Sam Burgess, 11 Jonny May, 10 Owen Farrell, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 Chris Robshaw (Captain), 6 Tom Wood, 5 Courtney Lawes, 4 Geoff Parling, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Tom Youngs, 1 Joe Marler

16 Rob Webber, 17 Mako Vunipola, 18 Kieran Brookes, 19 Joe Launchbury, 20 James Haskell, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 George Ford, 23 Alex Goode

Wales
15 Liam Williams, 14 George North, 13 Scott Williams, 12 Jamie Roberts, 11 Hallam Amos, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Gareth Davies, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Sam Warburton (Captain), 6 Dan Lydiate, 5 Alun Wyn Jones, 4 Bradley Davies, 3 Tomas Francis, 2 Scott Baldwin, 1 Gethin Jenkins

16 Ken Owens, 17 Aaron Jarvis, 18 Samson Lee, 19 Luke Charteris, 20 Justin Tipuric, 21 Lloyd Williams, 22 Rhys Priestland, 23 Alex Cuthbert