Relive every minute of Wales Stunning Victory that wiped out the 20 years of Twickenham hurt

Synopsis
Coverage of Wales’ 26-19 defeat over England at Twickenham in February 2008, the match ended 20 years of England’s domination over Wales.

Rugby World Cup Official 2003 Review: England: The official review of the 2003 Rugby World Cup for the English rugby team. The second Rugby World Cup to be contested in the professional era, the 2003 tournament in Australia is already being touted as the greatest rugby show on the planet.

Rugby World Cup’s Greatest Moments 2003: The moment England finally became World Champions. All the drama, all the action, all the greatest moments from the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The ‘2003 Rugby World Cup’s Greatest Moments’ release celebrates all the finest and most entertaining action from the sport’s ultimate showpiece as the superpowers of world rugby come together for only the fifth time. Great tries, huge hits and scintillating skills from England’s, Australia’s, New Zealand’s, South Africa’s and France’s superstars all feature on this sensational, fast-paced, highlights programme.

Synopsis
Provides a compilation of the highlights of the 2003 Rugby World Cup, including the build up to England’s victory.

You get about 12 minutes from each game.

This DVD was put together very early on in “the new Millennium”, and the Dallaglio commentary is all about: “we need to keep doing this in a World Cup”.
So it’s of interest as it’s the time that England started to win on the World stage and began to assemble their World Cup side, but as a highlights package, there are a few problems.
Crucially, England don’t score many tries in these games. And watching Wilkinson belt it over from all corners of the pitch is admirable but hardly thrilling when seen years later.

And there are games I thought might be there which aren’t. e.g. England’s sensational win in Ireland in 2003. Or any of the summer tour to Australia and New Zealand in 2003, when England were sensational, let alone any of the World Cup.

What’s happening in these years is that England’s second row and back row forwards were strangling opposition and putting forward a platform for Wilkinson to kick penalties or the occasional break from the backs. Yes, Robinson does glitter here, and Greenwood shows what a loss he has been: the only guy to glue England’s back division together in the last five years.

So it’s good to remember a time when we could genuinely beat all comers, but it’s not thrilling as a highlights package.

Watch as under strength but determined New Zealand come close to destroying Englands triple dream in just the first game , only for Ben Cohen to perform a heroic last gasp tackle on Ben Blair as it looked as if the All Blacks would pip the home side .England clung on against the odds to defeat the men In Black for the first time in nine long years , by 31-28.

Against Australia , it looked as if the game was up for the red rose as the slick Wallabies cruised into a 31-19 lead during the second half.But the cool head of Wilkinson and his superlative kicking put England within a score of victory , leaving the way for Ben Cohen to become hero of the day and give England a third consecutive win over Australia, although by the narrowest of margins , 32 - 31.

Last, but certainly not least demoralised South Africa arrived at Twickenham fresh from an embarrassing Murrayfield drubbing by the Scots.But their brutal and cynical game plan on the day played into English hands and England crushed the Springboks by a whopping 52-3.It was their biggest ever defeat and allowed England to seal the Southern Hemisphere triple crown and claim the Investec trophy.

This is an excellent DVD , purely on the basis of the subject matter, and all English rugby fans will lap it up. However , apart from the three interviews in the extras area there is precious little depth to to the actual DVD itself , as this is purely a collection of SKY highlights . But then again , what does a true English rugby fan want to do ? Watch England defeating New Zealand or flick through hours of pointless extras?

This DVD will keep memories alive for fans who watched the games originally and is a great addition to any rugby fans shelf.

A real shame they miss out the 1990 season entirely: England lost at Murrayfield but the win in Paris was one of their best ever performances.

Even in these winning matches, too often you see the problems: England backs simply could not pass as well as any other international team (and still can’t). Carling and Guscott and Underwood were all great runners, but none of them could pass properly. So you will be getting frustrated as well as inspired by memories of England wins. A classic example of that is the 1995 win against Scotland, ground out by a solid pack performance, but that’s all.

Still, a good DVD to dig out if England should end up losing to Italy in this year’s Six Nations.

PS Fullback in South Africa in 1994: Paul Hull