If that tired old cliché has had one airing since last Saturday’s extraordinary game with Scotland, it’s had a hundred. Which is all sorts of wrong. Because it should really be used for Wales’ biennial jaunts to Twickenham.
This fixture, since it became a contest again with that unlikely comeback win in 2008, has been played out eight times at Twickenham. The average final score is in England’s favour, 23-20. Wales edge the try-scoring record by 14 to 13. The last four games have ended with winning margins of four, three, six and four points. Tight games, with nothing much between the teams.
And yet, there is a notable pattern.
On pretty much every one of those eight occasions, England have roared out of the blocks and put themselves almost out of sight early on.
They have led at half time in all eight games. Only once – in 2012 – have they failed to reach double figures going in for their oranges/energy gels/foie gras. On five occasions they led by 10 points or more (the record half-time deficit is 16 points in 2016). They have only twice failed to score a try in the first half, and have three times crossed twice before the break.
Wales, on the other hand, have only once – in 2014, and that was due to five Leigh Halfpenny penalties – reached double figures in the first period. They haven’t scored a single, solitary first-half try at Twickenham in the Six Nations since Martyn Williams crossed in 2006. Not one. In eighteen years. They have a combined first-half points tally, across the eight games, of 42, just over five points per game on average. The average half-time score is 15-5 to the home team.
And then, just as inevitably, the tide turns.
It may not happen immediately. On two occasions – 2010 and 2022 – England scored tries soon after the restart to stretch their lead. In 2008, they kicked a penalty to stretch their lead to 13 points. The scale of the holes Wales have routinely dug for themselves before firing a shot are pretty sizeable:
| Year | Half-time score | Largest deficit | Score | Match clock (minutes) |
| 2008 | 16-6 | 13 | 19-6 | 45 |
| 2010 | 13-3 | 17 | 20-3 | 44 |
| 2012 | 9-6 | 3 | 12-9 | 65 |
| 2014 | 20-15 | 11 | 20-9 | 35 |
| 2016 | 16-0 | 19 | 19-0 | 42 |
| 2018 | 12-3 | 12 | 12-0 | 20 |
| 2020 | 20-9 | 17 | 33-16 | 61 |
| 2022 | 12-0 | 17 | 17-0 | 42 |
Apart from the 2012 game, which secured the Triple Crown, Wales have been way, way behind at some stage. Not last-Saturday-against-Scotland out of it, but sometimes not far off.
But in every game, Wales, hanging on grimly, eventually got a toehold and started to eat into England’s advantage. Sometimes it was enough to secure an unlikely win, sometimes they just ran out of time. But, at some point, they have put themselves back in contention.
In 2008, a desperate tackle held up Paul Sackey as he was, surely, about to put England up by 21-6 with the conversion to come. England stretched the lead by three points to 19-6 early in the second half, then imploded. Tries by Lee Byrne and Mike Phillips dragged Wales back from a 13-point deficit, scoring 20 unanswered points in the final 25 minutes to win by seven.
Two years later, Wales had their customary post-Lions dip. Struggling to get going, they found themselves seventeen points down within minutes of the restart. Tries by Adam Jones and James Hook brought Wales back to within three points with ten minutes remaining. But that was the end of their scoring. Attacking just outside the English 22 with six minutes left, Stephen Jones’ pass was intercepted and a length of the field move led to Brand Hask™ flopping over. A last-gasp penalty made it a 13-point win for the orcs.
2012 is the exception, as Wales went in as clear favourites. There were never more than 3 points in it until Scott Williams famously stripped Courtney Lawes of the ball – it is said that this is the last recorded instance of the English national men’s team trying to attack from their own half – to clinch the Triple Crown.
Another post-Lions season in 2014 saw a resumption of the trend. Caught napping by a Danny Care tap-and-go in the first few minutes, Wales were 20-9 down minutes before half-time. Two Halfpenny penalties made it 20-15 at the break, but Wales in truth never fired a shot. Tryless, they eventually succumbed 29-18.
2016 was probably the absolute piece de resistance, the bonnet de douche of the genre. Wales were awful for most of the game. 16-0 down at the break, 19-0 behind early in the second half, a brief rally brought a try for Dan Biggar before England re-established their superiority to stretch out to a 25-7 lead with seven minutes to go. And then Wales clicked. Two tries in four minutes for North and Faletau brought them back within four points. With 10 seconds to go, North attacked on the left-hand touchline and, tackled by Tuilagi, threw the ball inside to Rhys Webb who crossed unopposed. The assistant referee adjudged that North’s foot had brushed the touchline (it hadn’t) and disallowed the score.
Another two years on, and post another Lions tour, England were irresistible in the early stages. 12-0 and two tries to nil up in just 20 minutes, they didn’t score another point. But, crucially, they restricted Wales to just two penalties for a 12-6 win. Yes, Gareth Anscombe got to that loose ball first for a disallowed Welsh try, and Sam Underhill defied the laws of physics in getting to Scott Williams as he seemed certain to score in the corner, but this was one of only two tryless trips for Wales in those 16 years.
The Pivacmaggeddon isn’t remembered with the greatest fondness, but there were some pretty remarkable bits of play in among the sludge. The 2020 game – the last before the Covid lockdown – was a massacre. England were 20-6 up just before the break. They failed to convert a penalty, and Wales got one of their own to bring the deficit back to 11 at the break. And then Wales scored one of the most memorable of their tries in recent years, collecting the kick-off and sweeping up the field to send Justin Tipuric in under the posts. It was suddenly a four point game. England reasserted their superiority in opening up a 17-point gap by the hour, but back came Wales. Two tries in the last three minutes made it a three-point defeat, although in reality – as one of those came after the clock had gone red – Wales weren’t in contention in those final phases.
And then to 2022, where Wales again contrived to find themselves 17-0 down when Alex Dombrandt crossed early in the second half. Three tries, the last of which came a minute before the end, brought it back to 23-17. Wales again attacked with the final play but were unable to make it count, and that’s how it finished.
So, if the average first half score across the last eight editions is 15-5 to England, then in the second it is 14-8 to Wales. In the last four matches, England have built a biggest in-game lead of 19, 12, 17 and 17 points, and have held on to win each of them. But each by less than a score.
So, the moral of the story? If England build a healthy lead early on, all is not, necessarily, lost (although those of us still scarred by the 1990s and early 2000s will usually assume the foetal position if and when that big lead opens up). Then again, perhaps the better lesson would be that, if Wales could only start less like sloths on mogadon, they usually finish the stronger of the two teams and could, heaven forfend, have an inkling of an outside sniff of a chance.
Gwladrugby 