“It was a special moment for the team and the country to win the Triple Crown at Twickenham for the first time. We challenged the players before kick-off to go out there and make history and that’s what they did,” said Gatland.
“Some of these players are going to special for years to come, but now we have to make sure we just focus on the next game against Italy because it’s all about winning the Six Nations.
“Italy are a potential banana skin, especially if we start thinking about a potential Grand Slam game against France. But we have to believe we can beat them at home.”
The Triple Crown triumph at Twickenham mirrored the result Gatland enjoyed in his first game in charge of Wales back in 2008. Wales went on to clinch the Grand Slam in his first season and are now on course to match the superstars of the Seventies by making it three Slams in eight years.
England also came into the game unbeaten in their opening two matches and opened up a 12-6 lead at the start of the second half. But Scott Williams’ try turned the game on its head at 12-12 to allow Gatland to enjoy another win at HQ.
“We probably played our best rugby when we were down to 14 men. That was how we should have played with 15 on the pitch,” admitted the Wales coach.
“We knew how England were going to defend and we wanted to be direct and get behind them before getting the ball out wide. During the game we were probably guilty of playing too much rugby and spreading the ball too soon.
“But we kept the ball very well during that 10 minutes we were without Rhys Priestland and to come out of that period 3-3 was possibly the turning point of the game.”
