DERBY DAYS/Wales v England:Everyone wants to beat England, but the one scalp the followers of the Red Rose crave is that of the Welsh, writes Damian Cullen

NEXT SATURDAY evening England will enter the cauldron of Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. The home fans will be ravenous for victory.

But really, so what? Who doesn’t want to beat England, in rugby or any other sport?

Even if Scotland followed their defeat to Wales at the weekend by similar performances against France, Italy and Ireland, the 2009 Six Nations Championship would be remembered fondly by aficionados of the Flower of Scotland if it concluded with victory in Twickenham.

France meet England each year with such a fervour for victory it seems they’re still trying to make up for the humiliation at the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

And the Irish? Well, a history of international sport in Ireland can be traced fairly accurately by simply referencing clashes with the Auld Enemy.

And we won’t even dwell on the Southern Hemisphere nations. Suffice to say beating England always ranks high on the to-do list for Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina.

But what makes the Wales versus England clash unusual for its intensity, passion and significance is the attitude of the England players and supporters: it’s the one they most want to win.

The rivalry is much more of a two-way street, with equally wide carriageways. The English would, more than any other match this year, love to take the Welsh down a peg, especially given Wales are 2 to 7 favourites to follow their win in Twickenham last year with victory at home.

The rivalry first showed its head on February 19th, 1881. England scored seven goals, six tries and a drop-goal, and the first game was so one-sided the victors refused a Welsh request the following year for a rematch.

In retrospect, they should have accepted – it was the only period when victory over Wales in rugby was guaranteed.

The following century witnessed many great clashes between the neighbours, and was bookended by two such battles.

On January 10th, 1903, Wales played hosts to England in what was then known as the Home Nations Championship.

Two days later, The Irish Times gave a brief report of the match, stating that in “the first International Rugby contest for the season at Swansea on Saturday, before an immense crowd, Wales defeated England by three goals and two tries (21 points) to one goal (five points)”.

However, the story of the game concerned prop Jehoida Hodges, who two years later would be a member of the legendary Welsh team that defeated the touring All Blacks.

Losing against their rivals, and already short on outside backs, Wales were forced to move Hodges to the wing when Tom Pearson took a heavy knock and was forced to leave the pitch. The 26-year-old Hodges led the Welsh revival, scoring both tries as the home side recorded a 16-point victory.

And, as the 20th century neared its end, it was ready for another famous victory by Wales, this time in the unusual setting of Wembley.

The Irish Times took a little more interest in the fixture than they had 96 years earlier. “Passion, self-belief and a battling spirit, that refused to acknowledge the possibility of defeat, ultimately presented Wales with a match-winning try . . . in the process denying England the Grand Slam.

“With England six points clear and the game in its 83rd minute, Scott Gibbs, the never-say-die Lions centre, took a short pass from Scott Quinnell and danced his way past four defenders to score to the right of the posts. Neil Jenkins coolly slotted the conversion, his eighth goal of the afternoon from eight kicks, to give Wales victory (32-31). . . England’s players collapsed to the turf and the Welsh embraced each other with heartfelt emotion.”

Both losses hurt the English players and supporters as much as they lifted the spirits of the Welsh.

Clashes between the two, therefore, were frequently marked by tensions boiling over – probably most notably when England visited Cardiff 22 years ago.

Two teams, psyched up to the last, arrived on to the pitch surrounded by fervent supporters. Tussling for a football was never going to satisfy the built-up aggression and, after several off-the-ball incidents, 6ft 8in England lock Wade Dooley sent Phil Davies to the floor with a fractured cheekbone.

Similarly, Wales’ Paul Ringer was given an early red card in 1980 (by Irish referee Derek Burnett) when he decided not to stop running towards John Horton, even though the English outhalf was no longer in possession of a football.

At the time, England and Wales had won their opening two games and the clash was billed as the championship decider.

Roasted in the English press afterwards, Ringer suffered more by being blamed in Wales for the one-point loss.

Back then, of course, the biggest pre-match job was building the players up into a emotional frenzy.

Mark Ring, who played outhalf for Wales in the 1980s, recently told a reporter about arriving in Twickenham for the 1988 clash – which Wales won 11-3.

“On the treatment table there was a pile of tele-messages for us. I opened the top one and it read ‘Kick s*** out of the English bastards . . . Spike Milligan’.”

Incidently, the same day as Ringer received his marching orders against England, Scotland played in Paris and ran in five tries in a 36-22 victory.

Ten years is a very long time in rugby, and it’s unlikely Scotland will repeat that result this weekend.

But not everything changes.

This weekend in Cardiff everything is on the line once again.

Perhaps the Anglo-Welsh relationship is best summed up by former English RFU head Dudley Wood, who is credited with saying: “The relationship between the Welsh and the English is based on trust and understanding. They don’t trust us and we don’t understand them.”