“I wish the Scots and the Irish luck in the cup, but I’m afraid I cannot say the same to the Welsh.”
So said England rugby coach Martin Green ahead of the inaugural Rugby World Cup.
Happy days.
Three months earlier The Battle of Cardiff had seen Wade Dooley break Phil Davies’ jaw with a punch. The Blackpool policeman found spittle on the back of his blazer after a pre-match walk through the Welsh capital, while the full-back Marcus Rose was apparently showered in coins during the game.
He is said to have handed them all to the ref and spent the £3.50 in the bar later.
Dooley, Richard Hill, Gareth Chilcott and Graham Dawe were subsequently suspended by the Rugby Football Union for their contribution to the afternoon’s events, while Wales disciplined no one.
Perhaps that is why Green wasn’t especially happy with all things Welsh that year.
Fast-forward to 1980 and the England-Wales game which saw Paul Ringer sent off. The Welsh team bus leaving the ground was surrounded by opposition supporters with taunts turning to insults and V-signs and more. Famously, Ray Gravell had to be stopped from “getting off the bus to discuss the matter with them”.
England-Wales is a serious rugby rivalry, then, one of the most passionately fought out in world sport. Over 137 matches played between the men, England have 65 wins, Wales 60. It involves two countries united by proximity, but with differences that are never more keenly expressed than when they contest oval-ball matters.
Inevitably, controversies sometimes erupt, while sledging has been an almost constant theme over the 141 years since the first game between these two sides.
Here are some of the occasions when headlines were made for the wrong reasons and words were not altogether coated with honey:
2019 and all that
Wales and England had opened the Six Nations with two wins apiece, but the men in white had been more impressive in recording big wins over Ireland in Dublin (32-20) and France in Twickenham (44-8).
Stakes were high when the two unbeaten sides that term met in Cardiff in a match which was billed as a Grand Slam decider.
But Wales had England’s number in a game where the hosts waged psychological warfare on visiting prop Kyle Sinckler.
In Ross Harries’ book Behind the Dragon, a number of Welsh players highlight the scale of the bid to test the tolerance levels of the tight-head prop.
Rob Evans says: “We’d talked about winding Kyle Sinckler up because he’s a hot-head. As we packed down for an early scrum, Ross Moriarty was yelling from the back: 'Come on, Rob Evs, you’re gonna hammer him'.
”Alun Wyn was telling him to ‘stop crying’, just to rub it in. Then, as we were about to go down, Gar Davies turned to me and said: ‘Gats was right, Rob, he is f*****g s**t.’ He was getting it from all sides.”
Welsh skipper Jones proved a particular concern for Sinckler as he tested the combustible one's temperament.
Josh Navidi says: "The difference in attitude when Alun Wyn and Sinckler had each other by the collars. Sinckler was on the edge, ready to erupt, and Alun Wyn was just looking down and laughing at him.”
Eddie Jones eventually subbed the No. 3 before he was yellow carded after receiving a warning for putting Jones in a chokehold.
He had wound up Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony and France’s Arthur Iturria previously in that Six Nations' campaign.
But Jones proved an altogether different challenge.
Marler goes below the belt
And so to Twickenham in 2020, with England’s memories still fresh of the Cardiff game a year earlier.
Enter Joseph William George Marler.
In his book, Loose Head, he calls it “the rugby player’s greatest wind-up of all — giving a cheeky tweak to a player’s meat and two veg. You never want to go in hard, inflict pain. You want to mess with his concentration”.
An on pitch dust-up gave Marler the opportunity to put into practice his theory, with Alun Wyn Jones his target. The prop, according to his own testimony, “walked calmly in and gave his tackle a tickle”.
Jones didn’t lose his concentration but Wales did lose the game.
Marler was banned for 10 weeks for his troubles.
"I think it was an attempt at humour of some kind but I don't think there's any doubt that it was unacceptable to do what he did," former Wales captain Gwyn Jones later said.
"I think this is another example of Joe Marler just showing his stupidity. He's nothing more than an egotistical narcissist.”
Welsh take issue with Greenwood in during World Cup quarter-final
Will Greenwood seems an all-round nice guy but such a consideration didn’t seem to be taken into account by a couple of Welsh supporters as the England team left the field at half-time against Wales during the 2003 World Cup quarter-final in Brisbane.
Their team were ahead 10-3 against the eventual tournament winners and the lads in red decided to home in on the England centre. In his book, Will, Greenwood recalled: “Two of the Welsh fans crowding over the walls started screaming abuse at me: ‘Rodney Trotter, you’re f*****g s**t, you are. Rodney Trotter you’re going to win f**k all...’
“Lawrence Dallaglio was behind me and started peeing himself with laughter at this and I could hear him chuckling: ‘This is very, very funny.’”
“The Welsh lads then clocked him laughing and turned on him, saying: ‘As for you, f*****g Dallaglio, you are f*****g shite as well. The Welsh boys are going to f*****g kill you.’”
It didn’t quite turn out like that, of course. England fought back to win 28-17 and move into the semi-finals.
But as an example of fan sledging, this one takes some beating.
Eddie Jones targets Rhys Patchell
It's not an outrageous statement to suggest Eddie Jones might struggle in a popularity contest west of the River Severn, particularly after remarks which came to light in 2018 when Jones, apparently having a stab at humour, called Wales “this s**t little place that’s got three million people”.
It’s obviously the way he tells ’em.
Anyway, that year Jones also took aim at Wales fly-half Rhys Patchell ahead of the game with England at Twickenham. At that stage, the Scarlet was a relative babe in arms at Test level, with just six caps in the locker.
But England's head coach waded in, saying before the game: “I’d imagine that when Alun Wyn Jones and the guys go down for breakfast on Saturday morning they’ll be looking at him thinking: ‘Can this kid handle the pressure?’”
Some said Jones lacked class for the taunt.
Others deemed England’s coach a playground bully.
The probability is he wouldn't have bothered one jot about the criticism.
England won the match 12-6.
Gatland takes aim at Dylan Hartley
A coach taking a pot shot at an opposition player hasn’t just been an Eddie Jones thing when England and Wales clash.
Sample this from Warren Gatland on Dylan Hartley in 2011.
“Kiwis have been known to crack under pressure and choke. I hope [Hartley] does so a week on Friday. He always has a lot to say and he was responsible with some of his evidence for Richie Rees [the then Cardiff and Wales scrum-half] this month being banned for a long period. Hartley was not prepared to step outside to the back of the stand with Gareth Williams [the then Cardiff hooker] when invited to do so and we will see how he fronts up against us."
Hartley didn’t disintegrate in Cardiff.
He wasn't anything special but his lineout throwing was accurate and he made a steady contribution to an England win.
Farrell taunts Alun Wyn Jones
Twickenham in 2012 saw Wales clinch a Triple Crown on English soil in a game which wasn’t for faint hearts or sensitive souls.
An early penalty against Wales saw Sam Warburton stand up to a chorus of “have some of that, you Welsh c***s” from a choir of English players.
Then, as Rhys Priestland left the pitch for 10 minutes in the sin-bin, home lock Mouritz Botha said to him: “Well done, mate, you’ve lost your team the game.”
It didn’t turn out that way, of course, with Wales winning 19-12, after which Priestland apparently said to his in-game tormentor: “What did you say again?”
But maybe it was a new boy at fly-half who did his best to light the blue touchpaper for England. Even Welsh players were taken aback by Owen Farrell's aggression and lack of self-doubt that day.
There was one moment, in particular, which startled a Welshman who had been playing international rugby for close on a decade at the time.
Adam Jones had pretty much seen it all by then, but he still found himself with eyebrows raised amid some of the stuff Farrell came up with.
In his book Bomb, he recalls: “I’ll never forget one carry when Alun Wyn [Jones] picked up from the base and charged forward, Farrell stood there shouting at him. ‘Come on, then! F*****g run at me, you c***!’
“Language aside, I couldn’t help but be impressed.
“It was his first appearance at Twickenham, and he was deliberately provoking a Lions colossus who was twice his size.
“He backed it up, too, smashing into Alun Wyn with all his might — not knocking him backwards exactly, but certainly stopping him in his tracks.”
If Farrell still has room to improve his tackle technique, he continues to be renowned for his competitiveness and willingness to walk towards the sound of gunfire.
“He’s feisty,” says former Wales prop Paul James, on the bench for that match in London.
“Whenever you’d come up against him, you’d know what you were going to get.
“But it’s Wales-England: there’s always an edge to it and a bit of banter. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to be there.”
The ‘great gob’, a 60-point thrashing and cruel mocking
Rewind to early 1998 and Wales were not in the best of rugby health.
They had closed the previous year’s campaign with a 42-7 tuning off New Zealand at Wembley and scraped a 23-20 friendly win over Italy in a warm-up for the Six Nations.
Not the time for anyone Welsh to speak out of turn, then.
Apparently, Wales hooker Barry Williams went off message, reportedly saying he was looking forward to silencing “the great gob of English rugby”, aka Richard Cockerill.
England did their talking on the pitch, running in eight tries in a 60-26 win.
That evening in Twickenham, a group of well-refreshed England supporters taunted Welsh diners by singing ‘Bread of heaven, bread of heaven/ losing games by 60 points’.
Ringer sees red
Eddie Butler described the atmosphere when Wales played England at Twickenham in 1980 as “pure evil”.
The media had picked up on comments from Carwyn James highlighting over-zealous Welsh play against France in the previous Five Nations round and Wales were branded a dirty side, with much focus on Paul Ringer, a man who would admit himself that he played his rugby on the edge.
The opening to the game in London was explosive to the point where one player later described it as being like World War III.
Irish referee David Burnett issued a general warning which Ringer failed to heed as he hit John Horton with what the official deemed a short-armed charge. The Wales back rower was sent off. It caused uproar.
Wales produced a hugely brave performance, with Gareth Davies' line-kicking never better, but despite outscoring the hosts 2-0 on tries, they missed crucial shots at goal and lost 9-8.
“As we came back over the Severn Bridge someone had daubed in paint ‘Paul Ringer is innocent’,” Ringer later said.
True or not, the famed Wales No. 6 played just once for his country again.
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