England forward Ben Kay.

England overcame a passionate Welsh side 26-9 in Cardiff on Saturday to stay on course for the Grand Slam in the RBS Six Nations.

In the third of his exclusive columns with Tetley's, Official Beer of England Rugby, England star Ben Kay looks back on the bruising battle.

Although we were not delighted with our performance, we set out with two goals – to win and to not concede a try.

We achieved both of those despite not playing brilliantly but, to be fair to Wales, they stopped us playing.

We knew they would take the game to us early on because of how fired up they would be after their defeat by Italy.

It wasn't a case of weathering the storm but of trying to match it early on and of making sure that they had to work really hard to keep up with us. It was a case of trying to tire them out and hopefully in the end our fitness would tell.

The tries from Will Greenwood and Joe Worsley came further into the game and after periods of sustained pressure where we ran the legs out of them a bit and opened up a few holes.

The game was pretty much what we expected. We knew that Wales were going to come out and play with more passion than they had in a long time because everyone had been slating them - and they did not disappoint.

Our set-piece play did not go as well as it has been going over the last few weeks and our line-out did not function as well as it can which makes it very hard.

We felt that the referee allowed Wales to slow the ball down a lot in the rucks and mauls which gave them a chance for their defence to realign when perhaps we had numbers on them.

The message at half-time was to keep the pace up because we felt the Welsh were blowing a bit and we know we play at our best when the game is quick.

We were happy with the defence at that stage. We were down to 14 men but we knew that we could play with a man short – we just didn't want to let them off the hook.

Will Greenwood scored a good try early on in the second half. He is just the most penetrating runner.

When Jonny Wilkinson went off we had already lost a lot of our experienced backs and Will ran the show in the back line. He led the line very well and was in charge of the defence along with Neil Back.

I wasn't too shocked at coming off in the 62nd minute. I wasn't delighted with my performance and, to be honest, I've been surprised how little Danny Grewcock has been used because he is a world-class second-row.

We all felt a little bit more jovial than after the French game when everyone was a bit down with the way we had finished.

With Wales, there was really nothing for us to gain and everything for us to lose. We had highlighted it as a potential banana skin for the team and for individuals.

No-one was going to say we were brilliant for beating them – the only news was going to be if Wales had beaten us. We were happy to come away with a win in Cardiff and just move on.

We have now got a two-week break before we face Italy at Twickenham. We didn't have a big de-brief after the game. You can sometimes overload the players with information and you want them to be fresh when they report back.

Everyone is also very aware that a lot of teams have got really important matches this weekend.

They are quite conscious that we have got a break from England now and I am sure when we meet up again, everything will focus back into England mode.

There is a wealth of talent in almost every position now and if Jason Robinson and Neil Back are not fit for the game against Italy, whilst it's very upsetting for them, there are people who can come in.

We would obviously prefer to have them available but, in an important World Cup year, perhaps it's a good thing to give others the experience of playing at this level.