The final action in the opening round of the Six Nations matches comes from Twickenham on Saturday where a much fancied England side open their campaign at home to Wales
England v Wales, Saturday 7th February, Twickenham, KO 18:40 (South African time)
Referee: Pierre Brousset (FFR)
Assistant Referees: Nic Berry (RA), Morné Ferreira (SARU)
TMO: Tual Trainini (FFR)
Weather Forecast – Twickenham
England:
England won all four of their Nations Series matches in November, getting the better of Australia (25-7), Fiji (38-18), New Zealand (33-19) and finally Argentina (27-23). England were in Argentina in July and they won both test matches (35-12 and 22-17) before they thrashed USA (40-5).
England had a solid 6 Nations last year, winning 4 and losing 1 of their matches to finish in second spot, just 1 point behind title winners France. They lost their opening match of that tournament in Ireland (27-22) before narrow wins at home to France (26-25) and Scotland (16-15). They also put Italy away (47-24) in another home fixture before a thumping (68-14) victory in Wales.
In the Six Nations outright betting Hollywoodbets have England priced up as 14/10 second favourites
Results and Fixtures: R1 Wales (h), R2 Scotland (a), R3 Ireland (h), R4 Italy (a), R5 France (a)
Wales:
Steve Tandy took over as coach of Wales for their November series matches which started with a defeat Argentina (52-28) before they edged out Japan (24-23). After that they went down to New Zealand (52-26) and South Africa (73-0). In July Wales were in Japan where they lost the first test 24-19 before snapping an 18 match losing streak with a 31-22 victory in the second test.
Wales had a really poor 6 Nations in 2025, finishing with the wooden spoon after losing all their matches, in France (43-0) and Italy (22-15), at home to Ireland 27-18) and in Scotland (35-29) before being thrashed by England in Cardiff (68-14).
In the Six Nations outright betting Hollywoodbets have Wales priced as 150/1 outsiders to win the title.
Results and Fixtures: R1 England (a), R2 France (h), R3 Scotland (h), R4 Ireland (a), R5 Italy (h)
Recent Head to Head
Mar 2025 6N Cardiff Wales 14–68 England
Feb 2024 6N Twickenham England 16–14 Wales
Mar 2023 6N Cardiff Wales 10–20 England
Feb 2022 6N Twickenham England 23–19 Wales
Feb 2021 6N Cardiff Wales 40-24 England
Team News
England: 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, 13 Tommy Freeman, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Henry Arundell, 10 George Ford, 9 Alex Mitchell, 8 Ben Earl, 7 Sam Underhill, 6 Guy Pepper, 5 Ollie Chessum, 4 Alex Coles, 3 Joe Heyes, 2 Jamie George (c), 1 Ellis Genge
Replacements: 16 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17 Bevan Rodd, 18 Trevor Davison, 19 Maro Itoje, 20 Tom Curry, 21 Henry Pollock, 22 Ben Spencer, 23 Marcus Smith
Wales: tbc
The Betting
Average early show, subject to change
England -28.5 points at 9/10
Wales +28.5 points at 9/10
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.
This Weeks Bets
Brent Graham's betting angle and plays for this week’s internationals to follow
Finally, all this week's rugby tips from members of the Goodforthegame community can be found on the weekly rugby thread on our brand new discussion forum. If you haven't done so already, register a forum account here.
