- Oct 2, 2004
- 48,304
- 47,463
- Staff
- #6,921
It’s hard to make predictions as there’s 4 or 5 positions I’m not sure who he’s going to go with. For example if he goes Tomos Williams and Anscombe with Williams at FB I’d say we’ll lose by 14 plus. If we’re going Davies and Biggar with Halfpenny at 15 at Williams on the wing it’ll be closer.
Assuming the below team plays my head says England by 5 something like 22-17 but my heart says Wales to nick it by 3 something like 18-15
Evans
Owens
Francis
Ball
AWJ
Navidi
Tipuric
Moriarty
Davies
Biggar
Adams
Parkes
Davies
North
Williams
I'm fairly certain Gatland will revert to the 'old heads' for the England game, particularly as the team hasn't exactly excelled in the previous two matches.
I fully expect to see Biggar, Davies and Halfpenny all playing and I agree that with that experience back in the team it looks a much closer match-up.
England are slowly losing ball carrying again as the tournament goes on with Itoje and now Mako out, which also makes it a tighter contest.
Add on to that the fact that Wales always up their game in this fixture and it should be a great game.
I don't expect it to be the most expansive of games, certainly for the first 50-60 minutes. I'd have thought Wales are much better suited to dealing with England's kicking game than France were, and England are better matched in the forwards this year than last year when we got blown away.
All in all should be a very exciting game. It's a weird six nations in a World Cup year as it feels like teams are experimenting a bit with Japan in mind rather than the 6Ns itself, but you feel that neither team will give anything other than everything in this game.