He was almost waiting for it. As England’s Max Malins throws the pass, almost in slow motion you can see the Louis Rees-Zammit intercept unfolding. Except that there was nothing slow about the way the Wales wing romped home to score.

Check this out from the Gloucester, Wales and British & Irish Lions flyer.

The 22-year-old wing has played very little rugby lately – he had an ankle injury against Leicester Tigers on Christmas Eve and only returned to Gloucester action last Friday. But in that match, Cherry and White fans roared on as he scored Gloucester’s bonus-point try with four minutes of time left.

And here, there was no catching him before he made the line.

Tight match despite Rees-Zammit intercept

The score came against the run of play (literally) but Wales had not looked like breaking through England’s defensive line whenever they had built phases – at one point in the first half, Wales racked up 20 phases as they inched towards the line, but then England turned them over.

England had scored a try through Anthony Watson, from a series that began with a strike move off the scrum. However, the try for Rees-Zammit made it 10-8 in the hosts favour.

Shortly after, though, England were ahead again through a close range try. Referee Mathieu Raynal looking through a pile of bodies to quickly award the score to England tighthead Kyle Sinckler.

With the score at 10-15, the match descended into what the television comms team referred to over and over again as a “dogfight.” As you can imagine, the Principality crowd was subdued as errors piled up and scrums took place.

By the 75th minute, thought, England dotted down through Ollie Lawrence to make it 20-10 to the English.

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