Three weeks ago, a last-gasp Leigh Halfpenny penalty secured victory over Ireland in Dublin and yesterday, with Twickenham roaring England forward at 12-12 with five minutes to go, replacement centre Scott Williams stole the ball from Courtney Lawes on the halfway line, kicked ahead and scooped up the ball to score the only try of the match and seal a 19-12 win.
Wales has Italy at home next and, assuming it bags that one, will face France in a potential championship and possibly grand slam decider on the final day of the championship, on March 17.
Yesterday's win was only its second in 14 attempts at Twickenham spanning 22 years and, although it was by no means dominant against an inexperienced England team which showed encouraging signs of progress, it was a massively important one.
"They had the chance to create history today and they've done that," coach Warren Gatland said.
"This is a team that's going to be pretty special over the next few years."
However, the New Zealander, who led Wales to the semifinals of the World Cup last year where it was edged out by France, was not about to start predicting a third grand slam in eight seasons.
"Italy is a potential banana skin if you start thinking about France, but we've got to be confident of beating Italy at home," he said.
Captain Sam Warburton was also reluctant to talk about a grand slam. "I'm not going to jinx myself and say it," he said.
"We didn't play well at all today. We knew England are a quality outfit and that was one hell of a test match so to get the Triple Crown is unbelievable."
Wales dominated in the early stages but could not turn it into points and found itself trailing midway through the second half.
England's defence, which had already shown its credentials in the wins over Scotland and Italy, kept it at bay, and the winning try was very welcome for Williams after he had butchered a glorious opportunity 10 minutes earlier.
"That try made up for it," Gatland said after Williams had ignored a two-man overlap and been hauled down.
"He wasn't very happy with himself about that. But we work at every training session on ripping the ball. He did it to Courtney and it's nice to see that come off and change the game."
Despite the defeat, England can take a lot of positives from the game, which featured seven players making their first start at Twickenham.
"It's a game of small margins," interim coach Stuart Lancaster said. "We made mistakes but we'll learn from them. We didn't really capitalise on our periods of momentum."
Ireland recorded the first victory of its interrupted Six Nations campaign yesterday, finishing strongly to beat Italy 42-10 in Dublin, at the beginning of a daunting run of four games in successive weekends.
Two tries from Tommy Bowe and one each for Keith Earls, Tom Court and Andrew Trimble helped Ireland pull away from an Italian side which faded as the game went on, although the home sides was far from convincing and lucky to go into the second half ahead.
"It wasn't perfect but we'll take the win and move on to France next week," man of the match Jonathan Sexton said.
Ireland was playing for the first time in almost three weeks after its last game against France was postponed.
- Reuters
