Sidoli wins his spurs as Wales take pride

Victory was too much to expect but all Wales will settle for the enormous amount of pride they regained here yesterday against an England team rated the best in the world.

For all the English struggles in this encounter, I still wouldn't quarrel with that rating. They will need to do a lot better than they did here to reach World Cup form, but you can credit Wales for not letting them play to their best.

After such an excellent game you are likely to forget how far Wales had to climb from the pit they were in after the defeat in Italy just a week previously. It was a magnificent recovery and gave England problems they had to dig deep to overcome. How can anyone say the Six Nations is not worthy of England after a testing game like that? In the end they won comfortably, but they had to work their socks off for every point.

I thought the Welsh front five were terrific, with veteran Jonathan Humphreys returning to play a true leader's game. But he wasn't quite the top Welsh hero, as Robert Sidoli was the undoubted man of the match. He was up against Martin Johnson and Ben Kay, and didn't look the slightest bit out of his class. They must have wondered what hit them.

I'm sure England suspected they'd be in for a battle, but I doubt whether they thought it would be that hard. Indeed, they would have gone in at the interval 13-9 down if Mark Taylor had slipped a pass out to Rhys Williams when he was 10 yards from the English line. Taylor might have though Jason Robinson was moving out to cover Williams, but Robinson twisted back to collar the centre and the best Welsh chance of the match went begging.

With Phil Christophers sin-binned for clobbering Gareth Thomas as he was about to collect a good Ceri Sweeney kick just before half-time – it certainly wasn't the penalty try the referee was tempted to give at first – it looked as if England might be in trouble at the start of the second half, but they started to show the composure that Wales had harassed out of them in the first 40 minutes. It was the intensity of the England game that led to the home team's downfall. The fatigue of the Welsh defence was betrayed when Will Greenwood forced his way over for a try in the 47th minute. Both Gavin Thomas and Steve Williams should have nailed him before he got to the line. Then Joe Worsley bashed his way over 10 minutes after coming on as a sub and it was all over.

Wales attacked bravely right until the end, but their kicking game had gone. I thought Sweeney had a very encouraging debut, but the goal-kicking duties proved too difficult for him – after all, he's only third kicker at Pontypridd – and he missed three penalty kicks to touch. You can't afford to make mistakes like that against England, even when you have them on the back foot.

England will be relieved and delighted they came away witch victory but I'm worried about the way their game suffers when they play away from Twickenham. Wales got in their faces yesterday and the visitors found themselves shaken out of their composure and self-belief.

They must achieve more away from home if they are going to challenge for the World Cup in the autumn. So, in many ways, England will have gained more than a victory from this encounter; they will have learned that you must acquire the confidence to maintain your game-plan when away from your fortress.

Wales will be left reflecting their bad show in Rome. If they had beaten the Italians and followed up with the performance they showed on this occasion, they'd have every reason to be feeling good.

As it is, they have every reason to shrug off the pall of gloom that has hung over them during the past week. That's no mean achievement.