Six Nations 2016 - Jamie Roberts: It wasn’t pretty, but as defence captain I’m proud of the way Wales beat France

England are playing well – but they’ve been allowed to play too much by the other sides

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“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”

And so goes on the quote by Theodore Roosevelt. It’s one I turn to when the team I’m in is getting criticised or me personally. I did so again this week, and it helps me to laugh things off.

Sam Warburton said after the France game that he thought people might start doing a Mexican wave because fans were finding it a bit dull. I’d hold my hands up and say it probably was quite boring at times with it being defence, defence, defence, and particularly with the fact that there were two scoring chances that we left begging.

But as defensive captain of the side I take immense pride in the way all the boys put their bodies on the line for 80 minutes, tried to make every tackle and hit every ruck as though their lives depended on it. There was just so much energy and enthusiasm that went into that.

The driving point for that is the pure desire to win and that’s the ultimate goal. The Grand Slam dream may be over because of the opening weekend draw with Ireland but we’re still in contention to win this Six Nations Championship.

Of course, we’d like people to be more encouraging but at the same time we know there will always be critics.

We’ve beaten France five times in a row now and I don’t think that’s happened since the 1950s and, on top of that, we’ve only conceded two tries in those five games.

OK, we’re not 100 per cent into our attacking stride just yet and we know we need to do more than just win ugly.

England calling

And so on to what could potentially be a championship decider at Twickenham and, as they often are against England, the stakes are high. But I like to think that when the pressure’s on, that’s when we perform at our best. We saw it at last year’s World Cup at the same venue and again in 2013.

What happened in last year’s World Cup certainly boosts the confidence of the Welsh players. But where history becomes irrelevant is that this is a new-look England, a lot of new faces and a completely new coaching set-up. That makes it a very, very tough prospect.

We’ve progressed in this tournament from finding our feet against Ireland to the win over France but we know we need to raise our game now to another level.

Eddie Jones’ selections

A lot’s been made of England’s selections and the fact that Manu Tuilagi is being tipped to come back into the side but I don’t personally see Eddie Jones deviating that much from his current preferred XV.

I’d imagine Tuilagi will come on to the bench but I’m expecting the same midfield of Owen Farrell and Jonathan Joseph.

I’m a big fan of Joseph. He can stand people up or go around them, he’s got electrifying pace and he’s very skilful.

As for having the Tuilagi option on the bench, the guy’s a quality player and I know he’ll have been bitterly disappointed with the time away from the game because of injuries. He’s a huge asset to England whatever role he plays.

England are playing well but I think to date in the tournament they’ve been allowed to play too much by other sides. Ireland were probably too passive in defence so England were able to come to the line and play an expansive game.

We pride ourselves on our defence and we need to ensure we put pressure on them to stop quick ball. Take Ben Youngs at scrum-half: he moves the ball quickly before defences are set, it’s all about the speed of the ruck for England and quick ball and we need to negate that threat at Twickenham.

St David’s Day

Tuesday was St David’s Day and Gethin Jenkins put together a special playlist for the boys in training. There was everything from Tom Jones to Stereophonics, the Manic Street Preachers and Catatonia.

Geth’s probably got the best music taste in the squad and has been in charge of it for the last decade, I think. For a gym session, that’s usually some pretty hefty house or dance music.

As for who’s got the worst, I reckon a few of the boys would say it’s me, with the 1970s and 1980s music I like to listen to.

I marked the occasion by speaking in front of 400 people at the Wales in London St David’s Day dinner at the Guildhall and spoke about my pride at being Welsh. I found it more nerve-racking than running out in front of 75,000 people at the Principality Stadium!

A real Welsh great

Dwayne Peel announced his retirement from rugby earlier this week because of a shoulder injury. I’ll remember him as a great player and a great guy.

When I started in the international set-up, he was one of the more experienced players; he had so much time for the young guys and me in particular. He was ready to have a chat and a laugh.

His record speaks for itself and he was a fantastic athlete. He had a great rivalry with Mike Phillips for the jersey and they were very different scrum-halves in the way they played the game.

It must be a child’s choice

Banning tackling in school rugby has been a hot topic this week and personally I don’t think in school you can make it compulsory for children to play contact. It has to be a choice made by the child and their parents.

Saying that, it is the contact element that makes rugby unique – it makes it the sport it is and the sport I love.

From a personal point of view, what rugby has given me far outweighs the risk of injury. It’s defined my peer group, the guys I play with at Harlequins and with Wales and those friends I’ve played with in the past at every level of the game.

I was pretty skinny when I was 13 or 14 and I was on the receiving end of quite a bit of pain after games. That’s when you learn about bravery and about discipline on the rugby field – it makes you appreciate that. I also appreciate there are both pros and cons with regards to contact, and everyone will have an opinion on it.