England and Wales tantalisingly well matched for bout

Sometimes the Six Nations feels about as light and airy as a dessert trolley from the 1970s. Treacle sponge, knickerbocker glory, banana fritters: the championship comes similarly drenched in sweet nostalgia. There is little modern and fluffy about England versus Wales in March, these occasions tend to be as far removed from Southern Hemisphere Super Rugby as double cream is to a skinny flat white.

In terms of old-school satisfaction, nevertheless, Saturday’s Twickenham menu offers hefty quantities. England, annual gluttons for punishment, sit just two tantalising wins away from a first grand slam since 2003. Wales, in turn, will in effect clinch this year’s title if they repeat their World Cup victory at the same stadium only six months ago.

Alternatively, the championship could all be wrapped up with a round to spare should England win and France lose to Scotland in Edinburgh. That would buck the last-gasp trend of recent seasons, just as England are hoping to consign their World Cup pool disaster to Room 101.

Underfoot conditions

Given they have a fresh coaching team, the underfoot conditions will be softer and Wales are less injury strewn, last autumn’s outcome is not quite as relevant as it might be. That said, the 128th contest between these countries resembles all its predecessors in one familiar respect: the defeated team will be losing more than just a game of rugby football.

In recent years, particularly, the margins involved have been wafer thin. England were seven points up with 11 minutes to play last autumn and, infamously, could not hold on.

In Cardiff the previous February it was Jonathan Joseph’s nifty try-scoring shimmy that made the crucial difference. It took Scott Williams’s late turnover and a fractional TMO near miss for David Strettle to see Wales home 19-12 at Twickenham in 2012. So much about these two sides, their respective coaches included, is tantalisingly well matched.

So what will be the deal-breakers this time? For all England’s early control in September, Wales were quicker-witted late on. Their scrumhalf Gareth Davies, scorer of their all-important try, also revealed this week he and his team-mates had seen some English forwards blowing and had taken encouragement from that.

Gamesmanship or not, Gatland's Wales take some overcoming once they get in front. If the stirring lineout defence that denied England's final kick-to-the-corner gamble sticks in the memory, so does the impression that Dan Biggar, Alun Wyn Jones, Sam Warburton and Jamie Roberts think more clearly under pressure than most.

The challenge facing England, then, is as much mental as physical. Four successive second-place Six Nations finishes have been nagging at young and old. "The time is now to win something," emphasised the captain, Dylan Hartley, this week, but when the stakes start to rise the home team will need to find additional match-winners to Billy Vunipola, who is likely to find Dan Lydiate attached to his ankles.

Is Vunipola, anyway, really a more effective Test number eight at this stage in his career than his best of foes, Taulupe Faletau? It is all very well England relying on their strong bench – not least the returning Manu Tuilagi – to deliver again but Wales also have some decent operators in reserve.

Talismatic lock

If Gatland’s side could still do without losing Roberts early, their talismanic lock Alun Wyn Jones never tires of defeating the English and the ebullient Scarlets’ loosehead Rob Evans has been among the tournament’s revelations. His early duel with Dan Cole, along with Joe Marler’s arm-wrestle with Samson Lee , will soon tell England what sort of afternoon awaits them.

So will the first few peeps from the whistle of Craig Joubert, once the South African referee has jogged back on to the pitch he quit so abruptly after Scotland's World Cup quarter-final defeat to the Wallabies.

Interestingly, Joubert has taken charge of 13 previous Six Nations games, with 11 being won by the home side. The exceptions, however, have been victories for Wales, against Scotland at Murrayfield in 2013 and England at Twickenham back in 2008.

There may not be many of them. The squad conceding the fewest number of tries has won the last four Six Nations titles and England have leaked just one in three games, compared with Wales’s four. Everything points towards another tense pot-boiler with a late twist. Guardian Service