Rugby: Lock's Beckham moment leaves Gatland fuming

Welsh lock Alun Wyn Jones was sin binned for tripping England’s Dylan Hartley. Photo / Getty Images

Alun Wyn Jones may have tripped up Dylan Hartley in the 34th minute, but it was his own Welsh team who proceeded to go flying to the turf. Has a yellow card ever been so costly? And have 17 points ever been given away so cheaply as a result of such numbskulled recklessness?

The answers resounding across the Principality today were `No' and `No'. England may have been celebrating their first Six Nations win over their neighbours in four years, but their euphoria owed more to a lock's stupidity than any spectacular improvement on their behalf. "We lost the game because of it," a furious Warren Gatland said. "I'll tell him never to do that again in his career. You've got to front up and be honest. It was stupid."

Saying that, England tried to throw it away when 20-3 up. But just as the Welsh resurgence seemed irresistible at 20-17 so the interception came. And as James Haskell crossed over for his second try so the visitors bemoaned the No 5`s actions. Perhaps they will now rename him Alun Lose Jones.

Is that harsh? Probably. Although when Jones, a law student of all things, plays back the tapes he himself will consider the guilty verdict to be just. There was absolutely no need to stick his leg out when Hartley picked up the ball. Two tries and a penalty followed and Wales had a mountain to climb.

England will be thankful for it, and in many ways so should the neutral. The numerical shift opened up a game which had threatened to shut up shop for the night. The first 30 minutes in particular were on the dreary side of dull. It certainly wasn't pretty, all the action happening 20 yards up in the sky. There were fears coming into this tournament that the laws, the refs n blame who you will n were killing the spectacle. Well, in the opening spell the spectacle was crushed under boots.

Of course, rugby is not as simple as all that, and the forwards in white shirts could not give a damn about the marks for artistic impression. England starved the Welsh of possession, and even the scraps the visitors did try to convert into something more meaty hardly merited a burp. The problem was England's own ability to create was pathetically moribund. All those poor people who had paid to watch the game in 3D should have removed their glasses. They had oversubscribed by two dimensions.

But then, as it invariably has to as the clocks tick by, a game threatened to break out. Jones - of the Alun Wyn variety - produced his moment of madness and England had the numbers to exploit. They were still struggling to turn overlaps into points, and there was one staggering passage when they had four men on two and those two happened to be props. A try in the corner? No, one under the posts on the brink of halftime.

At least there were some runs to cheer after the interval. Danny Care did not enjoy a memorable afternoon apart from his try. The halfback took it well, but the contribution of the indefatigable Simon Shaw should not be underestimated. He took out Gareth Williams, who would have been there to stop Care's charge. It was one of union's classic "silent" assists.

There was no devaluing James Hook's jinking, jiving score that put Wales within sight of another Twickenham win. It wasn't enough, though, and so the focus turned on to Jones. It was his David Beckham moment.

- INDEPENDENT