The Welsh rugby dragons breathe fire and blow out England.

The Welsh rugby dragons breathe fire and blow out England.

It had to happen. You could sense something in the Welsh air. The wind of change was blowing a gale force of some ferocity and at long last Welsh rugby had something to go stir crazy about. For the older fans of the oval ball game Wales have only those lump in the throat moments of nostalgia to draw on during dark wintry nights.

 Wales can still fondly recall Phil Bennett, Gareth Edwards and JPR Williams from those emotional 1970s Saturday afternoons when the Welsh skipped, hopped, side stepped and generally bewitched England because they'd been extremely well educated in the finer points of the game. England were frequently bamboozled, breathless, confused and not even within touching distance of a Welsh prop, fly half or dazzling centre. Wales were masters of the hand to hand game, swapping passes and flinging the ball across the old Cardiff Arms Park as if it were a Christmas present.

But over 40 years later in the 21st century Wales were very much a side of evolution and revolution, a side on a steep learning curve and not quite the magnificent foot soldiers of yesteryear. Still, they are getting there. And yet back in the handsome 1970s, Wales could boast one Mervyn 'The Swerve' Davies, dodging, dropping shoulders, weaving, ducking and diving, plunging into heavy breathing scrums with derring do daring and then coming back for more of the same.

Then their loyal colleagues would turn on the swaggering style. There was  Phil Bennett, full of dashing individuality who would eagerly join forces with the hop scotching brilliance of Gareth Edwards who in turn promptly palmed the ball off for the onrushing doctor JPR Williams diving over for the most outrageously perfect of tries. It was a Welsh rugby team with an almost instinctive understanding of how the game should be played, telepathic thought processes and a lovely premonition of when exactly their next try would come. Wales were untouchable, immovable and above all unbeatable.

However, after a temporary lull, the present day side came out of the tunnel for this latest instalment of the Six Nations Championship, fired up, fully revitalised and ready to throw the kitchen sink at one of their fiercest rivals in one of the oldest confrontations that British rugby could offer.  This was a proper game of rugby, a contest of two delightfully contrasting halves where Wales were convinced they could impose their free wheeling, running game only to find that the bully boys in white England shirts had  alternative plans up their sleeves.

This was though one of those nerve shredding, pulsating and genuinely thrilling Six Nations matches that had most of us on the edge of our seats. It was a game that gave you heart thumping palpitations, an ebbing and flowing game full of raw physicality, simmering violence at times and no quarter given. Players crashed and smashed into each other, swarming over each other like red and white bees, tackling like tigers and dragging each to the ground with uncompromising force and menace before barging, grabbing, pulling and gouging.

England began brightly pinning the Welsh back with grinding and driving rugby designed to completely unsettle the Welsh. Still though there was the blood and thunder, the fearsome pushing and shoving grudge matches, the menacing eye balling at close quarters, the frightening, blood, curdling collisions and all the ingredients of a classic Wales- England Six Nations dust up.

With full back Elliot Daily covering and protecting his colleagues with the sharpest of eyes, Jack Nowell bobbing and scheming around the scrums and rucks, Johnny May enjoying one of his most outstanding of games on the wing and skipper Owen Farrell directing operations smoothly, England were using the ball constructively while never entirely at ease.

When Farrell broke the deadlock with a penalty after a collapsed scrum, England seemed to be rolling back  the years. They were beginning to shift the ball quickly and effectively, winning back possession decisively after Wales dropped theirs in vital areas. A thick muscular wall of white locked arms with a red Welsh commando unit that didn't quite know to handle them.

For a while those huge, meaty England brick houses with shoulders the size of boulders and legs as thick as rubber tyres, steam rollered forward, off loading the ball with the sweetest skill and heartwarming dynamism. Large battalions of white shirts would launch their impressive kicking game all the while keeping their hosts at a respectful arms length.

Then the Cardiff multitudes, now in full song and harmony as you would expect from those rousing male voice choirs, erupted. Wales took full advantage of English sloppiness and |Gareth Anscombe kicked the Welsh level with a penalty. At that moment the open roof of the Principality Stadium simply exploded with joy. Wales were back in the game and threatening briefly to sweep England aside with the dragon's breath of fire. The timelessly passionate Welsh crowd were in full voice.

Suddenly, fortunes swung away from a temporarily vibrant Wales team and England muscled their way back into a now intriguing match. After a breathless spell of hand to hand passes, the ball was smartly moved through to the ever willing Tom Curry who carved open the Welsh defence, swooping down and touching down for an epic try. England thought they were in cruise control mode but were to  spend the second half in a web of delusion. After Farrell had kicked over another penalty, Wales retreated into a nervous shell and must have thought the game had drifted away from them.

Little did they know that England came out for the second half like drunken sailors being thrown out of the pub quite unceremoniously. England had forgotten all of those fundamental ball winning techniques that had served them so well in the second half. They began to find themselves inextricably caught up in needle matches, slanging matches, loose, slovenly ball that fell out of their hands like bars of soap. The uptempo game plan and stirring intensity of England's first half withered on the Welsh breeze.

 Gareth Anscombe stepped forward again. A moment  of naive incompetence at the base of a scrum, ended with another Anscombe penalty which brought Wales one point away from England. Wales, sensing English weaknesses like a dog sniffing a bone, pounced back with wave after wave of attack, breaking vividly and powerfully towards the English try line. The Welsh were now winning the kind of the ball they were carelessly squandering during an even first half.

Then with ten minutes to go Wales lunged forward at English throats with the most reckless sense of adventure. There were gaping cracks and faultlines in an English side who thought they had the Welsh exactly where they wanted them. Now the superbly balanced George North, the marvellous Jonathan Davies, the brave and tireless Josh Adams, the ever skilful Rob Evans, Tomas Francis, the permanently enterprising and advancing Ross Moriarty and the irresistible Cory Hill were punching all kinds of destructive  holes in the English defence.

With the game still in the melting pot though Wales had to find renewed reserves of courage and stamina. But it now came gloriously right for the red of Wales. A beautifully judged long kick towards a hungry Welsh attacker found the right spot. Cory Hill, snappy and spritely, must have thought his birthday had come very early when England fumbled the ball and Hill gleefully pouched the ball, slamming the oval ball down for the winning Welsh try.

And so it was that England could only console themselves with the memories and match heroes from decades before. What exactly must have going through the minds of Will Carling, once skipper supreme, Sir Bill Beaumont. also leader of the pack, David Duckham and Dusty Hare from the now far off 1970s, mud spattered and battle hardened warriors, the Greenwood brothers and, more recently, the World Cup drop kicking victor Jonny Wilkinson?

Essentially England have much to offer and could potentially win another World Cup. And yet today there were one or two loose screws, cogs and wheels that need to be oiled quite urgently. The aggression is still there and there is an overwhelming desire to snatch back the World Cup again.

Meanwhile back at Cardiff the lights were flashing, the valleys were almost certainly singing at the tops of their voices and the whole of Wales had found a perfectly valid reason to celebrate. You suspected that in the watering holes of Llanelli, Glamorgan, Swansea and Aberystwyth the lagers were flowing and the Men of Harlech were belting out their dulcet tones.  It was a day to never ever forget for fathers, grandfathers, mothers and grandchildren, for today's generation of children to look back and think that this was indeed their day of days. Now for the Grand Slam. What a prospect.