Ben Youngs came off the bench to make England rugby history - but Marcus Smith emerged as the saviour as England escaped to a scrappy victory.
Youngs’ 115th appearance took him past Jason Leonard as the nation’s most-capped player and the prop legend was in the 81,269 crowd to applaud his achievement.
For much of a stop-start Six Nations game there was little else to cheer as Wales were pinged eight times in the first half and Smith kicked England 12 points clear.
But the game burst into life after half-time as Alex Dombrandt pounced on a hideously overthrown Welsh line-out to score England’s try.
Wales could have folded but instead Tomos Williams hit Josh Adams with a long cut-out pass to pull a try back on 54 minutes.
And when Taulupe Faletau and Dan Biggar combined to put Nick Tompkins over for a second six minutes later, the alarm bells were suddenly ringing for England.
It was then Smith showed composure to go with his class - twice nailing long-range penalty goals to take the game away from Wales and earn the man of the match award.
By then Youngs had come onto the field for his record-breaking moment, applauded on by the Duke and Duchess of Wales.
“An absolute honour to have held the record for so long,” said Leonard before turning to Youngs.
“I couldn’t want for a better individual to pass the mens caps record to as you are an absolute credit to the game.”
Happily for the Leicester scrum-half his big day ended in victory - though embarrassingly for England Wales outscored them by three tries to one.
The last of those came in the final minute when super sub Kieran Hardy reacted quickest to score beside the posts.
It was not enough to keep Wales’ title hopes alive, while England will know they need a huge improvement before Ireland come to Twickenham in a fortnight.
ENGLAND - Try: Dombrandt. Pens: Smith 6.
WALES - Tries: Adams, Tompkins, Hardy. Cons: Biggar 2.
