Six Nations: Billy Vunipola explains how Wales made England play their game that led to Cardiff turnaround

Wales managed to turn Saturday's Six Nations encounter on its head, with Vunipola and Jamie George explaining that their ability to break down England's game plan and implement their own tactics

It was telling after England’s defeat in Cardiff when Eddie Jones responded to a question about pin-pointing exactly where the Six Nations Grand Slam showdown slipped away from their grasp and into the hands of Wales.

“It’s hard to put my finger on it,” said the England coach, such was the difference in the two halves of rugby played inside the Principality Stadium on Saturday.

Jones’ response was understandable, given that at half-time it was hard to pick out where Wales were going to be able to break down England’s vice-like grasp on the match. But Warren Gatland is as wise as they come, and his side adapted to ensure they starved England of possession, made the most of pick-and-go surges and targeted the aerial vulnerabilities out on the wing that were supposedly fixed before this encounter.

It was cunning rugby, and it left England’s players at a loss to explain how the game slipped away from them just as much as their head coach. Essentially, Wales made England play their own game.

“We’re obviously on the wrong side of the result but you can’t fault the effort we put in,” said Billy Vunipola. “In the second half we let them back into it with silly mistakes, three points here and there, and then they scored in the corner.

“You could probably say that the momentum swung both ways but when it came to our time to grasp it we lost it. The aerial battle put them in a great position in the second half and off the back of that they built a lot of pressure. That last try was a bit like their first try, they had a penalty advantage and attacked us because they knew they had that in the bag. Next time we need to be better at reacting when the other team has advantage. You can’t fault the effort though, I don’t know how many phases it was but we held them out for a while.”

Perhaps the annoying thing for England is how Wales were able to deconstruct the gameplan that has done for Ireland and Wales with such ease. Spurred on by a cauldron of hostility inside the Principality Stadium - and that was with the noise escaping through the open roof - and led by the inspirational Alun Wyn Jones, Wales out-fought and out-thought England throughout the second half to score 18 points to England’s three.

“The biggest thing was them trying to take our mind off the game,” Vunipola added. “You saw in the second half there was a lot more niggle and we bought into that because we thought a seven-point buffer (was enough). That’s where they grew and every time the game started to speed up one of their players would go down. They wanted us to play at their tempo and they did that really well. The disappointing thing for us is that we didn’t fire a shot in the second half, but we must learn from it and improve. We didn’t deal with it the way we wanted to.

“They were really smart in holding the ball in the ruck. We were trying to get off the line and rather than firing the ball out, (Gareth) Davies was waiting for us to move and we didn’t react to that as we should have. Again it’s one of those things we have to learn from.”

Billy Vunipola believes Wales managed to make England play their own game (AFP/Getty)

From the moment that England arrived in Cardiff, they knew exactly what they were facing. Welsh men and women lined the streets outside the ground the ‘welcome’ the team bus, while fans queued outside the turnstiles more than three hours before kick-off. The noise that engulfed the stadium before, during and after the match was nothing short of spine-tingling.

“I enjoyed it. Genuinely,” said England forward Jamie George. “Some people call it hostile but I loved it. I loved being out there. It brings a smile to your face.

“You should have seen the boys in the warm-up when it was louder than I have ever played a Test match in and the boys were smiling. Of course it picks up both sides but it picks us up as well.”

Neither Vunipola nor his teammate Jamie George felt daunted by the atmosphere, despite the tens of thousands of passionate Welsh fans doing their part for the team in red.

“It shows what a big crowd and noise like that can do to a team. Fair play,” George added.

“We knew it was coming, we knew it would be loud. We spoke about it, addressed it, we wanted to make sure we enjoyed that element of it. It's not something we shy away from, we enjoy playing on the big stage. We have got some big stages to play on in the next 12 months.”

Wales were spurred on by a vociferous partisan crowd (Getty)

Which brings us to Warren Gatland’s claim that England struggle “to win these big games”.

“I think that’s unfair,” said George. “Listen, Warren can say what he likes. He is in a position of power after winning that game so fair play to them. What I know having been in the camp is that we are a team that wants to build and we are a team that wants to improve. We will learn from this. We have won big games before and we are going to win big games again.”