But Wales, humiliated by Italy in Rome last weekend, bounced back admirably in restricting England to a 26-9 win when the bookmakers had predicted a landslide loss.

“We had two objectives today – to win the game and not to concede a try,” Woodward said.

“We achieved that, and everyone is pretty happy in the dressing room. The Welsh team must be applauded – it was a tremendous effort from them.

“From our point of view, it went according to plan, and hopefully, we will get a bit better every game and keep nudging forward”.

Woodward saluted a towering performance from England number eight Lawrence Dallaglio, while also paying tribute to try-scoring centre Greenwood.

“Will was outstanding all-round. I thought he was brilliant, world class, while Lawrence also had a tremendous game.

“I’m sure that Wales can move on from here, and in no way was the game tougher than we expected.

“Wales are a good team – they showed a lot of passion, and I went into their dressing-room and told them that.

“We weren’t surprised at all by Wales, although we lacked a bit of discipline which kept us on the back foot.”

Woodward had no immediate post-match indication of England’s injury problems, although clearly there are concerns about fly-half Jonny Wilkinson, full-back Jason Robinson and flanker Neil Back.

A championship campaign is in danger of being undermined by injury problems, especially as they went into today’s game minus several front-line players, including Jason Leonard, Matt Dawson, Phil Vickery and Julian White.

England assistant coach Andy Robinson saluted Northampton prop Robbie Morris, who showed up well on his international debut after being drafted in earlier this week because of front row injury problems.

A lot of credit goes to Robbie. A lot of questions were asked of him today, and he has come forward with the answers,” said Robinson.