Twickenham: Inconclusive. For just over half of this competitive game England looked in fine fettle. There was pace and invention in their back play and the forwards thundered into the tackles and the breakdowns with real venom.
When Manu Tuilagi bullocked over for England's second try off an inside pass from Jonny Wilkinson three minutes into the second half to provide an 11-point cushion at 18-7, it looked for all the world as if England would bury Wales.
Fast forward thirty minutes and it was England on the back foot, England scrambling to defend their line as Wales ran in two second-half tries by Shane Williams and George North.
Worryingly for those in the black (England) shirts, there was even the slightest whiff of a chance that Wales might kick on and nick a result.
So the question now is which England is the real England? The one in which James Haskell and Simon Shaw bossed and bullied the Welsh forwards, where Wilkinson bobbed and darted and brought Tuilagi and the big, ball-carrying English forwards into the game with increasing deftness, where Delon Armitage attacked with a fizz which was alarmingly good?
Or the England who were running out of steam inside the final quarter, the England who appeared shapeless and vulnerable to attacks out wide?
No doubt those issues will become clearer over the next few weeks as Martin Johnson's team travel to Cardiff to take on Wales on Saturday and finish their World Cup warm-up campaign by confronting Ireland in a repeat of the fixture, which exposed all the cracks in this England outfit at the end of the Six-Nations.
Priceless ability
One fact is indisputable, though. Wilkinson is back as a genuine contender to start at outside-half. I'll go further than that. For me, Wilkinson did enough on Saturday to sweep him past Toby Flood in the pecking order.
It wasn't necessarily that his kicking out of hand was bang on, or that he was gloriously unpredictable in his distribution. Flood, on top form, can manage that. It was the fact that Wilkinson has the priceless ability to grab points when his team are treading water.
Thirty-seven minutes into this match England were up 10-7 and looking to score just before half-time. Gamely they went through their repertoire but produced nothing to trouble Wales.
What happened? From a static midfield scrum which was going nowhere, Wilkinson, flat-footed, received a ball, stepped inside the cover and banged over a scruffy dropped goal with his left foot.
On the hour he did so again, this time with his right foot, to turn a 20-12 lead into a 23-12 advantage. It wasn't as if England had done anything particularly worthwhile to give Wilkinson those opportunities for points. He just grabs them and then goes on his merry way for the rest of the game. England won by four points.
Wilkinson's two dropped goals contributed six. He brings a steadfastness and a reliability with his points-scoring which no other player, with the possible exception of New Zealand's Dan Carter, can offer.
Enough said. As for England's disappointing inability to turn the screw? That might be down to the amount of work they have done on the training pitch, which in an ordinary Test week they would not have put in during the build-up to a game, or it could be because Wales, as usually happens with them, were far more potent when the match had lost its shape.
Physical questions
A lack of physicality at the breakdown and in the one-on-one confrontations continues to haunt Wales. The preamble to North's first try was one of the few occasions in the first 50 minutes when their forwards collectively smashed England backwards.
During that spell it was England asking all the physical questions with only the superb Jamie Roberts posing a few in return. Bradley Davies and Dan Lydiate did their best, but the rest of the Welsh effort was powder-puff stuff.
Samoa and Fiji, both in Wales's group in the World Cup, will be licking their lips in anticipation. That said, Wales did get around England with some facility especially after the interval. Their three tries were all scored by wings and all were finished off close to the touchline.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2011
