True, but it is the hope that kills you Baron.
We laugh in the face of hope. :o
It’s never boring watching a team that has Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg in, mind. It’s a pity that Stuart seems to be made of porcelain.
England are continuing their form from last week and are giving France a bit of a battering. I’m not sure I’ve seen their tactical kicking any better and it has played such a fundamental part of the lat two games that future opposition will surely be working out plans to nullify it. It’ll be fascinating to see how that pans out.
I watched a lot of that game and even though I don’t completely understand rugby and certainly don’t get nuance, even this untrained eye can spot an ass-whuppin in progress. And that was an ass-whuppin.
France looked completely outmatched. Are they actually that bad or did England just play way above their normal level?
It’s a little of both, I think.
England are in good form - the best they’ve been in some time. A bit of this appears to be key players coming back from injury (both the Vunipolas being around is key - and it was not great seeing Mako go off with an injury yesterday - and Tuilagi is a better 12 than they’ve had playing in some time too), another bit of it is some luck that has allowed them to hit on good combinations (Wilson is only in the team because Brad Shields got injured in the Autumn but has grasped the opportunity with both hands - he and Curry give the back row a balance that it has not had in some time) and yet another part of it appears to be a better gameplan precisely executed. As Novelty Bobble pointed out, the kicking game over the last two matches has been exceptionally good - it will be interesting to see what happens when they come up against a side with a good plan to defend it (it could, for instance, mean more holes in the defensive line as men drop back to defend). England have also defended well, pushing the attack back and being much less passive than they were in 2018.
France were also bad yesterday. Some of that was selection - they picked two guys out of position in the back three and they got exploited over and over again in the kicking game (Penaud in particular was badly exposed and Huget was caught in the line leaving no full back in place more than once) and some of it was failure to respond to pressure when they had the ball. They actually put together some reasonable passages of play in the final 20 minutes but knocked on, threw the ball forward or what have you. There’s some sort of alarming stat for France that they have been in the lead at half time in 5 out of their last 6 matches or something - and lost them all. They’re clearly not terrible - if they were that bad, they’d never have got the lead in the first place - but there appears to be a significant amount wrong with them. They’ve had great success recently in age group rugby and it might be worthwhile getting rid of their coaching team, bringing in the U20 coaches and selecting all their young guys - they will at least have familiarity with one another and an ingrained idea about how they want to play that would be better than we saw on Sunday.
On current form, Wales appear to have no chance against England in the next game - which is probably exactly the way they want it, and the sort of dangerous thinking that England must avoid. I expect Jones to be pretty good at ensuring that’s the case, but I refuse to get my hopes up. Even if England win in a fortnight, I wouldn’t put it past Scotland to put it all together and prevent what should be a great opportunity for a Slam. Plenty of ifs and buts to come.
You had to go and say it, didn’t you?
FFS.
Scotland’s injury list is ungodly. 20 odd guys out with one thing and another I think. As one of the smallest professional player bases, it’s driven a coach and horses through this 6N for them. It’s a real problem indicative of just how physically difficult the game has become over the years. I think Dan Cole has gone on record saying that pro players are never 100% fit nowadays and it only takes a few injuries to totally scupper a team. Competitions like the 6N and the World Cup can sometimes become exercises in who has the most available players of quality by the latter stages.
Anyway now watch Scotland get up for England on the last day of the 6N. Not convinced that England are going to win this Saturday though - good chance that Wales will be going for the GS against Ireland. Wales are well coached, don’t have that many injuries and have a decent pack that has scrummaged well and has a bunch of decent operators in it. Going to be difficult this weekend.
You could say much the same about England. I share your concerns but I feel England deserve to be slight favourites for this one, even away from home.
My main problem is the back row - I have been very impressed with Wilson and Curry since they have got into the team but I think Navidi and Tipuric are better. Given breakdown is now where the game is won and lost, these are the 4 guys I am looking at to decide it.
I would take Billy Vunipola over Ross Moriarty every day of the week, which brings the back row into some sort of parity, but these two won’t be in the breakdown that much I would imagine.
The other area of worry for me is the back three. Wales will likely kick better than Ireland (who had an off day) and France (who were terrible). Daly in particular could do with having a good game.
Would you consider moving Daly to the wing (dropping Ashton) and bringing Brown in at full back, then?
Strongly, verging on making it a definite selection.
Ashton is a pretty good player to be able to bring on at 60 minutes as well, particularly in conjunction with potentially moving Nowell to flanker (though that probably relies on a fairly unlikely combination of England needing a couple of tries to get back in the game and not being able to get them due to lack of incision in the back line, despite winning good ball up front. If England are losing the ball at the breakdown then moving a non-specialist into the back row doesn’t seem likely to help).
Ashton is out injured, so if it were me it would be Daly on the wing, Nowell on the bench, Brown at full back. More likely to be Daly at full back, Nowell on the wing and someone like Cokanasiga on the bench.
I am fairly certain, though might be surprised, that this Nowell at flanker talk is a bit of kidology from Eddie Jones. I really can’t see it happening, even in a scenario where we’re down by a lot, for precisely the reason that you outline in your final sentence.
Well, he is a master of the art. But Nowell did play there last game to cover Curry’s sin bin, I believe, which is a little bit unusual in itself (you’d normally just go with a seven man pack, wouldn’t you?).
The always entertaining squidge on why Wales v England is such a special game.
Gggaaargghnnnnrraaggrh
It will be a long, long time before I recover from the emotional wringer of that match.
(And well done Wales)
I think that almost nobody at all who follows rugby, or is involved in running the Six Nations competition, is aware that the phrase is indeed probably borrowed from the Iroquois Six Nations.
Until the 1990s, the international rugby competition in Europe was just a series of fixtures that were agreed upon and played every year. England would play Scotland in England on the same day that Wales played Ireland in Wales. The following year it would be Scotland v England in Scotland and Ireland v Wales in Ireland, and so on. There were no trophies or official titles (except for the Calcutta Cup which was just for the game between Scotland and England). The ‘triple crown’ and ‘grand slam’ were conferred unofficially.
Originally the games were called the “Home Internationals”. France then joined the competition, sporadically before WW2, and then ever since WW2. There were therefore 5 teams competing, and since France is not one of the “home nations” in rugby or football speak, a different name for the international series was needed.
I believe that at some point many decades ago, some journalist who knew about the Iroquois jocularly nicknamed the competition the “Five Nations’ Championship”. Eventually this is what everyone called it, though unofficially until the 1990s. Since 2000, Italy have also played (badly, mostly) and the competition is now officially branded the “Six Nations”.
I can’t back this up with firm evidence though, Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t appear to note when “Five Nations” was first used in a rugby context. However I do know that the usage was popular, not official, and it seems unlikely that the phrase would have been coined independently.
I’ve just managed to prise myself off the ceiling after that. Fucking hell.
Wales well deserved their Grand Slam - and towards the end of their match today, when Hymns and Arias was ringing out in that magnificent stadium, I unexpectedly found myself really quite emotional.