England 48-7 Wales
Earl, Roebuck and Freeman also score tries for hosts
No surprises here, not even a hint of one. England have had tougher training sessions in preparation for this Six Nations and by the end the scoreboard spoke for itself. Wales were not so much beaten as buried beneath an avalanche of seven white tries including a first-half hat-trick for the pacy Bath wing Henry Arundell on his first England start since the 2023 World Cup.
If not quite as big a rout as England’s 68-14 win in Cardiff 11 months ago, the flashing red warning lights were visible from the moment the visitors had two players sent to the sin bin in the first quarter. They never looked like recovering and, in its own way, this disappointment will sting as much as the 73-0 defeat by South Africa in November.
If there was some consolation that England could not always sustain their first-half momentum it was strictly relative. The plain truth was that the game had long since been won and the bonus point banked, although head coach Steve Borthwick will be slightly irked by his side’s inability to put the hammer fully down when Wales were again reduced to 13 men by two more yellow cards in the final quarter.
