England Dominant as Flood and Ashton Shine.

England met Wales at the Millennium Stadium in the first game of the 2011 Six Nations and the passion and atmosphere was clearly on show straight form the start. Steven Jones took the first hit after less than a minute as both sides continued to show the passion from the national anthems but poor defending and silly mistakes gave away early penalties. Luckily for England Hook missed his penalty and a few minutes later Stephen Jones also missed.

Ashton celebrates extravagantly as he goes over for
England's first try.

When England did finally get some on the possession and made some good runs the final pass went wrong as Ashton and Foden had to try and get hold of poor passes. England then finally worked things the right way and Toby Flood found a huge gap in the Wales defence to set up Chris Ashton for the first score of the 2011 Six Nations and it was right under the posts so Flood easily converted to give England a 7-0 lead after 15 minutes. The scrum had been poor all game and the next score came from Wales conceding a penalty from the scrum which Flood easily converted to give England a 10 point lead. James Haskell then gave away yet another penalty after kicking the ball out the ruck and Jones didn't make the same mistake again as he got the first 3 points for Wales.

England then had a number of good runs with the ball and attack after attack was drawing them closer to the Wales try line but a turnover allowed a breakout to over the half way line and put themselves back under pressure. The home crowd roared and Wales mounted a charge on England who scrambled back in defense and it was only Deacon jumping over the ruck that stopped the attack. The foul resulted in a yellow card for the England number 4 and once the penalty was scored by Jones England had to try and survive for the next ten minutes a man down. England, as expected, tried to absorb the pressure and keep the ball. In an attempt to get the ball back Wales conceded a penalty and Flood restored England's 7 point lead. The next attack came from a great cross field kick which Stoddart got a hand to and the resultant scrum allowed England to run down the clock on the sin bin, without having conceded while a man down, and once they had seen out a final Welsh attack they got thought to half time 13-6 up.
The second half started much the same as the first with Wales having much of the ball and England giving away another penalty. It differed to the first half as Jones scored the kick to cut England's lead to just 4 points. England then started to build again and hands in the ruck by Mitchell resulted in a penalty and a yellow card and Flood hit another good kick to again restore England's 7 point lead. This time it was Wales who kept the ball patiently while a man down and they kept the ball for a long time despite a few loose passes and when they did lose the ball they kept England out but got lucky when a knock on just a few metres out meant they survived. A series of line outs then followed for England who kept the pressure on and when they finally got quick ball from the ruck the backs flew the ball through the hands out to the right for Ashton who got his second try of the game right in the corner. Flood hit yet another super kick to convert the try and gave England a 23-9 lead as Mitchell came back on.
Wales came straight back and they broke the England line, which wasn't straight, and Stoddart took a difficult pass and turned to get over the line to Wales hope. Jones converted well from a tight angle to cut the lead back to 7 points. A brutal few tackles from Wales resulted in three England players being left lying on the floor but they had a penalty for their troubles which Flood kicked to the corner. This was to be Flood's last contribution in which he had been the star man so far. His replacement was non other than Jonny Wilkinson who straight away put in three good tackles. Harpe then gave away another silly penalty and Wales reduced the lead further with Hook's kick but England where still 4 points up with 10 minutes to go.
England then had drive after drive stopped by Wales on their own try line as England wasted an opportunity to score vital points and Wales eventually got a penalty. England then got their own penalty and Wilkinson scored with ease to end ten consecutive points by Wales and restored a 7 point lead for the away team. England then held off Wales for the remaining few minutes and when Care kicked it to touch after the 80 mins England won the first game of the 2011 Six Nations 26-19 and now have three home games on the run and will be looking for a similar result in all of them with the toughest test looking likely to be against France.
Flood was man of the match after controlling the game kicking all of his kicks and setting up the first try and if he continues on this form then England will surely justify their tag as favourites for the overall win.