Anthem trick helped Cooke’s England overcome 20 years of failure in Cardiff

We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Last Friday’s match at the Millennium Stadium was the latest in a long line of hard-hitting, intense matches between these two neighbours, played out in front of fervent home support.

England went into Cardiff last Friday having not won in the Dragons’ den for eight years.

Two decades earlier, the England team of 1991 had not won in the Welsh capital for 28 years.

Geoff Cooke was England’s coach that day, the adopted Yorkshireman preparing his team for the cauldron of Cardiff Arms Park by piping in the Welsh national anthem at Gloucester’s Kingsholm, where his team trained, and on the coach as they crossed the border.

“The whole build-up was based on what could we do to break their stranglehold,” recalls Cooke.

“It was almost a case of ‘what’s so special about going to Cardiff?’ We stayed in the middle of town, right round the back of the Arms Park, so we were right in the heart of it, whereas in the past we’d tried to avoid all the build-up around the city by staying somewhere like Chepstow and travelling in on the day.

“We’d hammered Wales the year before and to repeat that feeling and get them tuned in for the atmosphere in Cardiff we had the anthem playing all the time during training and on the journey.

“We told them when they were listening to it to visualise scoring tries against Wales and beating them.

“And when the anthems were sung at the start of the game, I looked at every one of my players and they were all singing the Welsh national anthem.

“Whether that approach helped us win the game I don’t know, but we won it, and it’s always nice to look back on it and smile.”

England won courtesy of a record haul of penalties from the boot of Simon Hodgkinson, England’s kicker extraordinaire in the days before Rob Andrew and Jonny Wilkinson.

England won 25-6 but there was to be no celebrations in the media as the players boycotted the post-match press conference, clearly irked by the words written in the build-up.

It was a game played in a hostile environment that generated much hostility. The calming hand of Cooke – who had assumed command of the England team in 1987 after successful spells in charge of Bradford, Yorkshire and the North of England – helped the Red Rose overcome the rising blood levels in Cardiff Arms Park.

“Homefield does always seem to be a big advantage in the Five and Six Nations championships,” he says. “No matter what atmosphere you go into; in Murrayfield, Paris, Cardiff, it’s going to be hostile.

“But if the visiting team gets the preparation right and have the right team in place, then they should be all right.”

Cooke’s England – which consisted of household names like Will Carling, Jeremy Guscott, Rory Underwood, Rob Andrew and Brian Moore – went on to win the grand slam that year and reached the World Cup final, where they were beaten by Australia.

“It was a good side in 91,” he recalls. “We should have won the grand slam the year before when we lost the final game to Scotland – we all that regret that still.

“It made us doubly determined to win it in 91 and we went and won it in 92 as well, so I suppose three in a row would have been a bit greedy.”

Reflecting on the opening game of the 1991 season, which set England on their way to victory, Cooke says: “Those first games are important, but they’re not the end of the world.

“The fate of grand slams, triple crowns and championships rest on the outcome – but you put that to the back of your mind.”

Next up for the current England side is a date with Italy at Twickenham this Saturday, the traditional whipping boys of the now expanded Six Nations.

Acceptance in the premier European international tournament was nothing more than a pipedream for Italy when Cooke left England in 1994, after 49 Tests and three overseas tours.

But for Cooke, who also led the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand in 1993, their participation in the competition since 2000 has enhanced the format.

He says: “Italy have certainly got better and I believe it’s good for the Six Nations.”

Cooke is recently retired from rugby. Named OBE in 1992 for services to the sport, he took over as director of rugby at Bedford after his spell with England and led them into the Premiership in 1998.

Born in Cumbria before moving to Yorkshire as a teenager, he took chief executive roles at Wakefield and Worcester before retiring from the professional ranks in 2002. Enticed back in by the pull of the amateur game, Cooke returned to the merged Bradford and Bingley team as director of rugby before becoming a respected administrator as the chief executive of First Division Rugby. His retirement is spent watching rugby and playing golf but he still fondly looks back on that famous win in Wales 20 years ago.