I don’t know much about rugby, but I’ll be watching. Go England! I’m also giving ESPN’s fantasy rugby a shot with an auto pick team.
It should be a really good contest this year. Ireland have been excellent, England are looking a bit shaky, Wales look strong and Scotland are playing the best they have in ages. Who knows what France will be like? As for Italy, well on their day I think they could upset someone if the stars align just right.
And it’s a World Cup year as well!
Wow that was a good first match between Wales and France. And we’ve got England Ireland to look forward to tomorrow.
Hmm “Six Nations” obviously has a different meaning across the pond.
I was expecting a thread about the Iroquois.
I have to say, I don’t think I’ve seen a team play play quite so badly and still put in 24 unanswered points. What the hell did France have at half-time? Mind you I was thinking that France were riding their luck somewhat in the first half, some very, very curious kicking options taken and bad decisions all over that only Welsh ineptitude failed to capitalise on.
It was certainly fun but I’m not sure we’ve learned anything about either team.
Damn England cut Ireland right in two.
That has to be the best England performance in quite a while. Shows how silly the talk about Jones having had it was.
I think we’ve learned that neither is particularly a side to be feared by the other teams.
Wales took advantage of the French mistakes that mattered. And in that pouring rain, there were many mistakes.
England looked mean. Just flat out nasty. Let’s see how Ireland responds next weekend.
I’m honestly not sure if you mean two of the six nations being north and south Ireland, or the result of a match.
The Irish rugby team represents all Ireland. My comment was an allusion to a Robert Johnson song 32-20 blues.
As long as its 15s I’ll catch what I can. Have just never been able to get into 7s at all. Of course being a former hooker may be part of the reason for that.
Beating the Irish at their own game, IMHO.
I thought the Irish got a lot of key decisions their way in the first half (none of their lineouts looked straight to me, for example - one eventually got called against them towards the end of the half) - but England still went into the break ahead. I didn’t see the second half.
Huh. Honestly, I thought this game was pretty average - the weather didn’t help - with both sides making masses of errors. On the plus side for Wales, they surely can’t be as bad again in this tournament as they were in the first half on Friday night. They looked flat, Anscombe kicked terribly, they chased poorly, they knocked on, they missed tackles. They were bloody awful. To win from that position needed both an increase in performance, which they got, and some help from the opposition - who provided it in spades. France’s breakdown work went to pot for a solid 25 minutes in the middle of the second half, Wales started putting big runners over the gainline and the French defence just couldn’t cope. 2 tries might have been big errors but they were just for the pressure Wales put on; their best try was the one chalked off for AWJ taking Picamoles out on the fringe. Wales best performers were their front row - aside from one penalty conceded, they handled a much bigger and relatively vaunted French front row with ease.
Wales have Italy next, which is good for them; an opportunity to build on their second half in France and try to settle into the tournament a bit more. They know they got a smash and grab on Friday - really you have to win matches in a manner that is repeatable and Friday was certainly not that - but they’re well placed for a good run now that they’ve got that terrible performance out of their system. They also have England and Ireland at home, which will be a big help.
England performed about as well as they have done under Jones on Saturday - certainly since they went to Australia in the summer after that last World Cup and won a Test series 3-0. The obvious points have already been made - England dominated the tackle area, pushed Ireland back and bullied them around the park (England’s pack were magnificent - man of the match could have been pretty much any one of them) - but what Wales failed to do on Friday, England did well on Saturday. They looked after the pill, kicked with precision and chased - mostly - extremely well. They identified that Henshaw was out of position at full back and used League style diagonal grubber kicks to expose him, they noticed that Earls wasn’t good under the high ball and targeted him mercilessly and their own back 3 held up under the kicking game pretty well. Tom Curry was good at breakdown too, making a lot of Irish ball slow. The task now is for England to play with that clear a gameplan (not necessarily the same one) and execute it to that level every time they go out on the park. Upcoming is France at home - they must win to back this result up, but the French pack are unlikely to be as easily manhandled.
If I am NZ, I would reckon that they have seen exactly how to beat Ireland and would back myself to do what England did, to a higher level, with better players. Talk before the game was Ireland were the best team in the world now, the favourite for the RWC. Not now, imo.
Ireland - their absentees really hurt; they need Kearney back at full back, so they can use Aki off the bench and put Henshaw back in the centre; they need Sean O’Brien back - I forgot Van Der Flier was on the pitch, so anonymous was he at breakdown; and they also missed Iain Henderson in the second row. It didn’t help that Conor Murray was coming off injury either - he looked like he’d been out several weeks and wasn’t his usual self. I also thought Rory Best was poor - personally I think he’s a bottler - he’s been on the last two Lions tours and, faced with the biggest games of his life, went missing on both occasions. He did it again here. They shouldn’t panic though - they’ve got players to come back - but it is evident that the gap between the second string and first in some positions is not as close as they might like. Scotland away is going to be tough, mind you.
I didn’t see Scotland-Italy: it was obvious who was going to win and, in preference, I watched England’s cricketers get their brains dashed against a rock in the Caribbean instead. We’ll see more about Scotland in particular next week.
Scotland-Italy was much as you would expect for the first 70 minutes (or possibly the full 80, depending on how cynical you are about Scotland):
First 10 mins - Scotland dominate and produce chances, but don’t capitalise them (e.g. try ruled out for double movement). Italy score from a penalty to take the lead.
Then Scotland get their act together and score two good tries - winger Blair Kinghorn the scorer in both cases. We then get bogged down in scrumming and finish the half 12-3 (Scotland should be on about twice that, if only they could take their chances).
Second half started much better, with Scotland scoring through Hogg and then getting the bonus point try from Kinghorn (that’s a hat-trick), and then a further try from Harris. Italy seemed wide open, unable to hold back Scottish runners or to get out of their own half when they had the ball. Fitness was beginning to tell, and I thought the last ten minutes would be a romp.
And in a way, they were. Berghan brought a maul down deliberately and got sin-binned for his troubles. Italy scored immediately. Hogg has a try disallowed (wrongly, as the ref later admitted). Then Italy score twice more, to make the score 33-20 instead of 33-3. Scotland looked pretty flat in defence in those 10 minutes and Ireland will be feeling that they’ve got something to work with tomorrow.
Blair Kinghorn, who scored a hat trick, will get a great view of the match from the bench, with Sean Maitland coming back from injury. That must have been a fun conversation.
This was an interesting selection, as far as I am concerned. England have made a similar selection this week, in that, they played the more defensive minded, harder edged, kick chaser on the wing against Ireland (Jack Nowell) and this week v France have picked Chris Ashton instead who is more attack minded. Scotland appear to have done the same thing but in reverse - choosing the defensive option v Ireland by dropping the dasher from last week.
All these guys are sitting on reams of data and it’s interesting that Scotland and England have come to similar conclusions. Be interesting to see how it plays out on Saturday - maybe there is a vulnerability on the wing for Ireland that teams are looking to exploit.
Scotland are good - better than they have been for years but Ireland are smarting and some sort of backlash seems inevitable. Very tight this one, but I think Ireland might sneak it (I wouldn’t be surprised by the reverse).
Wales will beat Italy.
England - France. Heart says England. Head probably says England too, but it will likely be more hard yakka against a big French pack, and a side that, in general, tends to get much better the longer they are together (largely because unlike the other 6N countries, the national side struggles to get player access from the clubs as frequently).
Cracking first half, Ireland just ahead slightly against the run of play. Scotland start and finish well but had a dodgy period after giving away their first try where errors crept in.
Kinghorn gets to play after all, in his preferred full-back role after Hogg comes off injured.
It’s going to be close, which probably means someone’s going to make an error they’ll regret for a while.
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Not much in it, Scotland are having a few handling issues and that’s probably the difference at the moment. They’ve squandered several good field positions through knock-ons.
Ireland favourites but still not firing on all cylinders and just a converted try in it.
More errors creeping in for Scotland now, Ireland turning the screw.
Yeah, decided not by one big error but by lots of little ones from Scotland. Disappointing.
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So many handling and other errors. Having said that, watching Scotland play is pretty much always entertaining now - God knows there’s been actual entire decades when that wasn’t true