Peter Jackson: Wales out to wham the slam

Now that Ireland’s painful abdication from their crown has come to pass, England and Wales will fight it out next week for the right to claim the Six Nations throne.

It will be worth the best part of €7 million to the winner in prize money and yet there will be something far more valuable at stake, something that cannot be measured by anything as coarse as filthy lucre. The way the Welsh see it, no price can be put on national pride, least of all when it’s England at Twickenham.

From their perspective west of the Severn Bridge, this is the mother and father of all grudge matches — always has been, always will be. The one certainty, therefore, about Saturday week’s Six Nations decider is that there will be no love lost between them.