‘Fills me with dread’ – England icon reveals Six Nations fear ahead of Wales clash
Today at 01:29 PM
World Cup winner Mike Tindall is urging England to deliver another big Six Nations win but admits taking on Wales at the Principality Stadium fills him with "dread".
Wales like nothing better than dashing English title hopes and after 16 successive defeats the Welsh know they can give their long suffering fans a massive boost by knocking over Maro Itoje's men.
The Principality, previously The Millennium Stadium, used to be a cauldron of fear for visiting sides, but England haven't lost there in the Six Nations since 2021 – a game that was behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A big bonus point win for England will keep their title hopes alive, but they will also need Scotland to pull off a shock victory over favourites France, in Paris, to allow them to finish Six Nations champions for the eighth time.
Tindall, one of England's 2003 World Cup winning heroes, told talkSPORT: “Going into the game, we’ve got to win with a bonus point that will hopefully allow us to go top if we can get that win, and we need to go for it.
“This is the challenge for Steve [Borthwick, England head coach] and the boys now; they know what they’ve got to do, Ireland are playing [Italy] first, so they’re going to know what they’ve got to do to go top, and they’ve got to go and deliver.
“They’ve (England) made some whopping changes. Obviously, sadly, with Ollie Lawrence rupturing his achilles, we’ve had to make a shift.
“But then we brought Tom Roebuck in, Elliot Daly shifts on to the wing, Marcus Smith comes back in.
“So for a team that isn’t really that settled, it’s a lot of changes to deal with in a week.
“I think your average supporter would say they’ve been a frustrated England supporter over the past year and a half. But I do still think we’ve got a great squad.
“The challenge for them now is; we know they can play structured rugby, but we’ve got to go out there, score a lot of points and enjoy ourselves.
“I think we saw that, in essence, against Italy. Their approach for 50 minutes was high tempo, quick taps.
“It just looks better to watch, and I hope they can take that into a Welsh match, which always fills me with dread, because we’ve had some bad beatings at the Principality Stadium in the last games of the Six Nations.
“But you know, they’re trying to do a little resurgence in the way that they play with Warren Gatland going mid tournament, so it’s a massive game for both teams.
“And you know, hopefully we get humdinger and England come out on top.
“Hopefully Scotland can do us a favour. I mean, that must hurt every Scottish fan that they might be doing England a favour if they win this game.
“But, yeah, it would be quite awesome if we could do that and we can finish on top.”
