Wales racked up a record-breaking win the last time the two teams met at the Millennium Stadium in March 2013 as Warren Gatland saw his troops seal a second successive Championship crown.
Defeat that day ended England’s hope of both a first tournament title and a first Grand Slam in a decade, with head coach Stuart Lancaster admitting that the result hasn’t yet been erased from memory.
England will finally have their chance to exact revenge at Twickenham in five days’ time and Rowntree is convinced the outcome in Cardiff, and particularly the manner in which the Welsh forwards got the better of their English counterparts, will have a positive effect on the home side as they go in search of the Triple Crown.
“It’s driven us on,” said Rowntree. “That game hurt: it’s well documented how much that hurt me and the forwards. I don’t get nightmares any more but I did at the time.
“We have come a long way from that because we have learned from it. I said at the time it was important that we capture the lessons from that game. I think we’ve shown from our performances that we have moved on.
“The intensity their forward pack brought to that game is something we are striving to match. I think we have shown we can do it, but we have got to do it consistently.”
The battle at the setpiece is sure to play a huge role again this time around and Rowntree offered a mixed assessment of England’s efforts at today’s Pennyhill Park press conference.
The former Leicester and Lions prop, who was part of Gatland’s staff when the Wales coach led the Lions to series glory in Australia in the summer, has been delighted with England’s performance in the lineout but he admits that progress will need to be made at scrum time on Sunday.
“The lineout is a credit to the guys. There are young guys that have come in like Courtney Lawes, who has taken on responsibility for making those lineout calls. Credit to him on that,” added Rowntree.
“He’s thrived on that extra responsibility and is asking for more. The thing is that it doesn’t take away from the rest of his game, because I don’t want him worrying about lineouts the whole time. He’s still playing dynamically, he’s tackling well and his breakdown skills are second to none.
“As for the scrum, Ireland gave us a proper workout in that area and are one of the best-coached forward packs of recent times. We’ve got to be better and that’s not withstanding that we had a tighthead prop (David Wilson) who’d played 47 minutes in two months.
“As a unit, we’ve looked at how we can improve and we have to do that against Wales this weekend. Those (Welsh) guys weren’t British & Irish Lions for nothing. They’ve got a lot of experience as a unit and have won a lot over the last few years in terms of Six Nations – and been in a World Cup semi-final.
“I know what makes these (Wales) guys tick and it was a pleasure to work with them for the Lions, but it’s important that we don’t allow that to distract us from what we’ve got to do as a team.”
