Gwyn Jones: Wales can pull off World Cup shock given the state of England and Australia

How quickly things change? After one round of warm-up matches, Wales have gone from a team that looked like they would crash out at the group stages to a side with a chance of reaching the final.

Their half of the draw is wide open and Wales’ dominance in the second half against England was emphatic. They were superior in both physicality and strategy.

England were poor. More of that later, but they did not look like a side Wales would fear in a knockout game in a couple of months’ time.

On the other side of the world Australia are in disarray. Fair play to Eddie Jones, it took him seven years to turn England into a basket case. However, he has outdone himself and managed to repeat that achievement in Australia in just seven months.

As it stands, Fiji and Argentina look as dangerous as anyone in preventing Wales reaching the latter stages.

I don’t wish to pick through the bones of last Saturday’s match too much but there were some things that I feel need a mention. Wales kicked a lot, no surprise there, but there were some differences that appear intentional. There were a lot of cross-field kicks used to exit deep positions.

This may have been specific to playing against England and to avoid Freddy Steward in the channel. It worked ok because England’s wingers struggled. Wales kicked from 10 rather than 12 when you can draw the opposition backline up further, isolating the openside wing.

There is more risk involved because everything is more exposed. A mistake or an act of skill can be fatal. It will be interesting to see if this continues, not just against England, but also against South Africa. If so, you can expect it against Fiji and those wingers in open space will relish the prospect.