London // They played the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” as a prelude to this Pool A encounter on Saturday night, and there will be plenty of people crying up and down the country this morning after Wales shocked England 28-25 in the most anticipated match here since the 1991 World Cup final.
Tries from Jonny May and 20 points from Owen Farrell set up what would have been a third straight victory over Wales in what was a nervy, passionate and pulsating clash.
But the visitors hit back with 23 points from the boot of Dan Biggar, the man of the match, and a try by Gareth Davies. England’s penalty count haunted them throughout, allowing Wales to draw level and eventually pull clear.
Wales remain top of Pool A after their bonus-point success over Uruguay, and they will look down at England from the giddy heights of second place in the official world rankings when they are revised after Sunday’s matches.
Wales host Fiji at the Millennium Stadium on Thursday, and nine days later they face Australia here at the scene of their latest victory.
Supporters of Wales will lament that Leigh Halfpenny, Rhys Webb, Eli Walker and Cory Allen have all had to miss the tournament through injury, but the remaining players went some way Saturday night to show that coach Warren Gatland has remarkable depth at his disposal.
For England, the showdown against Australia at Twickenham on Saturday now assumes monumental importance, with the top two teams in the group set to go through.
The English front row set the platform for victory by dominating the Welsh scrum. Billy Vunipola carried the ball with gusto, while Owen Farrell and Sam Burgess were not as awful in tandem in midfield as the pre-match expectations from the British press suggested.
Ben Youngs shrugged off his indifferent performance from the opening night against Fiji and was a constant menace around the fringes until he hurt his ankle and was replaced by Richard Wigglesworth in the second half.
It was the Leicester Tigers scrum-half who was the key player in England’s opening try in the 27th minute.
From a lineout he found flanker Tom Wood, who charged infield, and the ball found its way behind decoy runners to Anthony Watson, who looked for work all night.
Had he passed earlier, Mike Brown would have waltzed in, but the Bath wing set up a ruck in the left-hand corner. When England cleared out the defence, Youngs found May and ordered him to scamper in under the posts.
There were some early nerves on England’s part as Burgess, with the weight of expected failure hanging over him, shanked an early kick in to touch from his own 22. For all his good work later on, Watson elected to kick rather than back himself when attacking down the right wing in the eighth minute.
Wales were more composed early on and gave away fewer penalties, and for much of the first 25 minutes Farrell and Biggar exchanged penalties. The England fly-half even succeeded in a drop-goal attempt, where his opposite number failed.
In the second half, whenever England pulled away by two scores they continued to give away needless penalties, and often in their own half, that were lapped up by Biggar.
England’s physicality began to tell on Wales, and Gatland was forced to ring the changes with injuries to wing Hallam Amos and Liam Williams.
But Wales had spent the whole match hanging in there, and Davies applied the finishing touch when he latched on to Lloyd Williams’ awkward 70th-minute grubber. Biggar added the gilt with a conversion and a 75th-minute penalty for a famous victory.
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