David Flatman has a dream scenario for how he would like to see England v Wales reach a conclusion at Twickenham on Saturday.
“I would love it to be super tight, brutal and tense and for it to come down to repeated close-ups on the TV cameras of Marcus Smith and Dan Biggar, where it’s almost like duelling at dawn, seeing who is going to pull their team through,” says the prop turned pundit.
“One team chasing it, one team trying to hold out and who is going to manage it?
“That sounds interesting to me.
“I would love it if it came down to the last 10 minutes either way.”
Former England loosehead Flatman is fascinated by the impending fly-half battle between Smith and Biggar, two players he has a huge amount of time for.
“It’s weird with Dan,” he told WalesOnline. “He’s got Test 100 caps and yet he still plays with a chip on his shoulder.
“I like that. He’s chippy, but in a really good way. He’s got such a point to prove.
“He doesn’t look the sort of bloke who acknowledges he is superior and tries to glide through a game.
“He is flat out, playing like he’s never going to get picked again and I love that.
“He’s fighting to get picked every week. You watch him and it’s like Johnny Sexton.
“You think ‘mate, you are definitely playing next week, chill out’. But they can’t.
“He was great against Scotland. He often does really well against fly-halves around whom there is a lot of hype.”
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Which, of course, brings us to the 23-year-old Smith, who is very much the pin-up boy of English rugby.
Many will view this weekend’s Six Nations clash as a contrast between the game-management and control of Biggar and the instinctive attacking brilliance of Smith.
But Flatman feels it’s not as straightforward as that.
“Watching Biggar play for Northampton, I think his split-second decision-making and skill level at the line remains under-rated,” he said.
“Equally, Marcus Smith’s pragmatism doesn’t get talked about very much.
“I have watched lots of matches where he has actually run the game really well and made some really good decisions, whereas a year earlier he was trying to win the match from where he was, almost on talent alone.
“You have watched him learn and become better at Dan Biggar’s strengths.
“By the same token, Dan has played some lovely stuff at Northampton. If the situation presents itself, he is absolutely capable of setting a back line alight and shredding a defence.
“So I think they are contrasting players, but not quite as contrasting as some often declare.
“They have perceived strengths, but I don’t think that means they have perceived weaknesses. I don’t think that’s legitimate necessarily.”
Another big talking point ahead of Saturday’s game is the potential return of two players who have only recently recovered from injury: Taulupe Faletau and Manu Tuilagi.
Faletau has been drafted into the Wales squad having had two outings for Bath following a seven-month post-Lions lay-off with ankle damage.
Flatman likes the idea of him forming a Welsh back row alongside Taine Basham and Ross Moriarty.
“Basham is a player to admire, he’s been great and Moriarty is an absolute slammer," he said. "He is just nails.
“If Moriarty plays at Twickenham, at least two or three times he will leather somebody and there is still real value and worth in that in the modern game.”
As for Faletau, he said: “He moves very well, he’s very skilful, he’s got good footwork and he’s fast and all that stuff.
“But I’ve always thought his value lies primarily in his work-rate. There are lots of guys with good stats on the pro circuit, but he’s got very-high quality involvements and just so many of them.
“He does a lot of high-quality work when he’s fully fit and there’s huge value in that.
“He is the opposite of a high impact, low work-rate player.
“You used to watch Sebastien Chabal just smash someone to bits and then take an extra five seconds to get off the floor and walk around for a bit, get his breath back and smash someone else.
“That’s fine, but that does mean someone else has got to be making a lot of tackles and clearing a lot of rucks.
“With Faletau, you don’t need to balance him with anybody else because anything you need him to do he can do.
“Having a fully fit Faletau at 8 means you can pick whoever you want at 6 and 7.
“It makes no odds because he can do lineout, mauling, jackaling, tackling, carrying, wide channels, heavy traffic, he can do everything. Footwork, hands, link play, hard lines in the midfield, he can do every single thing and he can do it for an hour and a half.”
When it comes to Sale centre Tuilagi, he too has had just a couple of games back since tearing his hamstring while scoring a try against South Africa in November.
“What the England midfield is doing has been an eternal question since Tindall and Greenwood retired,” Flatman believes.
“What’s happened basically is if Manu Tuilagi is injured, everyone is waiting for him to get fit and as soon as he does he smashes Andre Esterhuizen in his first game back and he’s straight into the England squad from there.
“He’s only played a game and a half and he’s straight back in after all this time out.
“I love watching him play, but there’s this complete dependence on one guy who hasn’t been consistently fit much throughout his career. It’s an odd thing.
“It’s almost like we have got Manu now, so we are cooking on gas. Marcus Smith has got a big unit at 12 to play with.
“He has played so little. To start a massive Test match after a game and a half back from a long injury seems anxious, but then he is potentially special.
“There is no-one else available to Eddie Jones who produces that much power in contact.
“They don’t have another one. There is no other English player folding Andre Esterhuizen at the moment in the Premiership.”
Flatman continued: “It’s the same with Faletau.
“Even if they are out for ages, they come back in and they are so good.
“You might think 'give them a bit of time', but it’s a case of 's**t, we have got to win this week'.
“If you don’t consider the short-term with great scrutiny, there is every chance you won’t make it to the medium and long-term, so you have to win now.
“Wayne Pivac is not running a regional academy where it’s all about long-term strategy and planning, he’s got to win now.”
How does Flatman rate Pivac’s team on the back of their opening two Six Nations matches?
“When I watched Wales play Ireland, I thought they just repeatedly lost collisions and just weren’t able to dominate,” he said.
“They weren’t able to move forward through the contact, whether defensively or offensively.
“It looked like like U20s against U18s a little bit. Ireland just had a bit more power in almost every carry.
“It’s very difficult for the opposition to win a game like that.
“Then you see Wales perform better against Scotland. They looked good.
“Well, Scotland, especially without Jamie Ritchie, are just a less physically powerful and less bulky team than Ireland.
“So it wasn’t such a surprise that Wales looked more powerful in the contact against them.
“But how will they fare in the contact with England, who are a traditionally powerful team, with lots of resource and lots of players to call on?
“That will be an interesting one again.
“Ireland went from battering Wales physically to playing against France, who more than matched them and suddenly they don’t look anywhere near as dominant.
“You can talk all you like about getting your own game-plan right and concentrating on yourself, but you are playing against 15 other lads and if they are whacking you, you are f****d.
“Wales, you would expect, will have a harder task dominating the contact and the breakdown against England than they did against Scotland.
“Even though Scotland beat England, England have a lot of big lumps and a lot of good operators in there.
“Alex Dombrandt is difficult to handle over the course of 80 minutes, difficult to suppress, so is Ellis Genge.
“They have got a couple of big units that Wales will have to deal with.”
So what’s the mood within the English rugby community going into Saturday’s game? Is it one of confidence?
“I don’t think there is an over-riding sense of confidence really,” said Flatman.
“At the moment, it’s 'how are we trying to play? Not quite sure'.
“There’s always this funny contradiction where England are viewed as arrogant, partly because Will Carling used to play for them!
“He kind of embodied the whole sort of posh boy thing, except the fact he’s a great bloke, he’s really bright and he was hard as nails. People forget those bits.
“England are seen as arrogant because they’ve got so much resource, so many players and so much money.
“People don’t like that. It’s a bit like people love to shoot down Premier League footballers. It’s a similar thing.
“What a lot of other countries do is call England their biggest game.
“I’ve got a lot of Welsh mates. I’m off to see Tom Shanklin this week now. I’ve got pretty strong connections to Wales and it’s a weird thing where all the Welsh talk about is England being their biggest game and then the Welsh call the English arrogant.”
Looking ahead to Saturday, the eight-times capped Flatman continued: “I think it will be a close contest.
“I don’t look at either team and think these guys are shredding opposition defences and scoring loads of points.
“They are two attacks that aren’t quite flowing yet.
“Wales have got a super threatening back three who will do good things from kick receipt and on counter attack.
“But the key is for Wales to create space for themselves. Opportunism won’t be enough.”
So who is Flatman tipping to win?
“England," he said. "I wouldn’t bet against them at home against many teams.
“But even though I’m an English fellow, I’m never that worried about who wins the game.
“I don’t lose sleep either way, to be honest, I just enjoy the game.”
- You can listen to the thoughts of old pals David Flatman and Tom Shanklin on the Flats and Shanks podcast.
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