Round 3 Round-Up

Three games gone. Four teams equal on four points each, two wins and one loss. Scotland waking up and playing rugby from nowhere.

Listen to any rugby fan born south of the equator and he/she'll waste no time telling you that the 6 Nations pales in comparison to the Rugby Championship. The standard of rugby is better, they'll say. You're unlikely to watch two sides rolling around in the mud, unable to gain foot purchase, much less see the ball for the shit caking their faces. Not for them the 9-6 wins, kicking tennis interspersed with penalties interspersed with collapsed scrums. Not for them.

The other thing that's not for them is any doubt, conjecture or tiniest sliver of uncertainty about who's going to win. Since its inception in 1996 as the Tri Nations, the tournament has been played 18 times. New Zealand have won it 12 times. South Africa and the Aussies have 3 wins each. Argentina, so far, have not got close. The All Blacks are fully 4 times as successful as anyone else.

In the long and illustrious history of the northerners, however, the figures are staggeringly more equal (at least if you ignore Italy, who have never won). They read, for Overall Tournament Wins in all versions (Four Nations, Five Nations, Home Nations etc...)

Eng         26
Wales      26
France     17
Scot       14
Ire           11

Obviously we've played a lot more, but the point stands. Every year most people go into the tournament saying 'any one of those 4 could win it'. As if to prove it, there have been 4 different winners in the last 5 years. Let no one tell you the Rugby Championship is better.

Wales v France

'Can Wales bounce back?' was the question everyone was asking. What they should have been asking was 'Can France consistently string more than 2 passes together?' The answer to this was a rather emphatic 'no'. In fact, the French capitulation made Agincourt look like a monstrously overwhelming victory and had amateur blog-writing type people reaching for the Thesaurus and looking up the word 'inept'. 'Incapable', 'incompetent' and 'maladroit' are three of my favourites. Seriously, the French could not conceivably have played any worse, given the supposed calibre of their so-called players. Mangled at the scrum, out-thought at the breakdown and relying on the laws of chaos to ensure the ball reached it's intended target, they would have been beaten by a decent club side. People pelted Scotland with rotten haggis after their tame defeat to England: they should now be slinging gangrenous snails at the French coaching staff because, given the array of talent they have to work with, that was nothing short of a disgrace. The lot of them want locking up for crimes against rugby.

Wales were better, there's no doubt about that. It isn't easy to force the French scrum backwards, but that's exactly what they did (although the scrums were a return to the bad old days at times. Had Brian Moore been commentating he would have been spitting brimstone). Warburton had a big game, and when their captain plays well the rest usually follow. It was good, but it wasn't vintage, and they're still missing Jonathan Davies in the centres. Can he return for the crucial clash against England?

Italy v Scotland

The traditional wooden spoon decider was only going to be won by one team judging by form so far. Scott Johnson's selection policy remains befuddlingly unfathomable (still no Kelly Brown, dropping Dave Denton) and for the first half, at least, it appeared to be business as grimly and direly usual. They deserved to be 10 points down at the break, Italy deserved to be in front.

Then, finally, Scotland started playing. Their second try was a gem of incisive running and deft off-loading, and Italy had to adjust to being in a contest, which they did. The drop goal was amazing for Scotland and heart breaking for an Italian side that you could not in all honesty say deserved to lose. The questions we are left with are: can Italy get the win their ambition in this tournament has deserved and can Scotland kick on? Italy have Ireland and England left to play, so the answer to the former may well be no, while for Scotland it's all about what happens when Vern Cotter takes over as coach as much as anything. It's puzzling times north of Hadrians Wall, and disappointing ones in Rome. Whether pulling their two teams, Treviso and Zebre, from the Pro 12 next season (for purely financial reasons) helps or hinders Italian rugby in general remains to be seen, but the tournament would be poorer for their loss.

England v Ireland

The big one of the weekend, this was a titanic clash wrapped in a giants punch-up basted in fucking massive gravy. Tenser than a tightrope walk over a piranha tank and so edge-of-the-seat you ended up crouching on thin air. It was brutal, punishing, intense stuff, and the resulting English victory is being billed the length and breadth of the land as the watershed moment for this emerging England side. I'm not sure about that - lose to Wales (again) in two weeks and all that might sound a bit premature - but the signs since the autumn have shifted from promising to encouraging to just downright bloody good. Players are beginning to nail down spots and there are more to come back, especially in the back line with the likes of Tuilgai and Marland of the Yarde, who returned to London Irish duty on Sunday. Mike Brown and Joe Launchbury were both immense.

The performance was far from perfect though. England again left points on the field (Johnny May in particular will be kicking himself) but the only way sides learn to be more clinical is by playing with each other more. This is still a growing side, and where they might be in 1 or 2 years is an exciting prospect.

Ireland, meanwhile, will be frustrated, but will not panic. They remain in the box seat with a superior points difference and Italy in Dublin for their next game. Win their remaining games, and it will take a huge effort from somebody to nick the trophy from them.

Coming up...

So on to round four. England and Wales will battle it out for the right to challenge Ireland, while Scotland will be hoping for a strong home-showing against the topsy-turvy French, who in turn will be demanding an improvement on their own hapless display against Wales. Now we start to separate the wheat from the chaff, and after the next game 4 contenders will have been whittled to two or three.

The question is, who will they be?

England v Ireland Game Preview

'A tight-head prop! A tight-head prop! My Kingdom for a tight-head prop!' is what Shakespeare almost certainly would have written, had Richard III been a known fan of Rugby Union and found himself in Stuart Lancaster's current position (unlikely: Richard, along with the rest of the House of York, was a colossal pervert who wore a white rose, not a red one, which as we know is incompatible with the laws of nature.

And cricket. Especially cricket.)

Anyway, the best laid schemes o' mice and top-level elite front-row scrummagers gang aft to bollocks (as Robbie Burns was quoted as saying, before changing it to be more inclusive) and rarely has a side won the 6 Nations without having to fill someone's injury-vacated boots. It is the performance of those that replace, not the replacee, that now matter, but it is a sign of the regard in which Dan Cole is held and his importance as a stalwart of this England team that papers were opened on Monday morning all over England with a groan and a wince. Cole has, for the last 2 years, been one of the first names on the team sheet, and with Cian Healy now looming like some sort of grisly green giant on the south-west London skyline, it would be preferable not to have to play one of either a returning crock or a 5 year-old boy. If we accept that Corbisiero would also be playing if fit (although Joe Marler has been filling his boots with aplomb), this means that England will be going into a crucial match with only one-third of a first choice front-row. And try saying that ten times fast.

Davey Wilson, his replacement, will at the very least be expected to hold his own physically in the loose. It is the scrum and maul that will have the greater bearing on the outcome though, and for that (I'm told) you need a bit more between the ears and actual technical skill. Or something. Because let's face it, if it was all physical, you just chuck Wilson on. I mean he's... he's got a torso like... just Google him. See? The Irish are world-weary and battle hardened, and come fresh from physically pulverising an equally world-weary and battle-hardened Welsh pack. The English, by contrast, are a relatively callow lot but have proved they can mix it with the best. They will now be hoping that the tight-head issue does not present Ireland (and specifically Cian Healy) with a match-surrenderingly weak link.

The other area where England must improve (and this is pretty well documented) is how strongly, or otherwise, they finish games. I've already harked already on about Tom Youngs' line-out throwing, but England are now making far too much of a habit of not scoring at all in the last quarter. You can't expect to win any tight games like that, and England, consequently, haven't won any tight games since Australia in the Autumn, a game in which the Wallabies failed to score in the second half full stop. The moral here, I suppose, is that the only tight games you can expect to win by not scoring in the final quarter are those in which you stop your opponents scoring in EITHER the 3rd or 4th quarters. Or all of them, to take the lesson to it's logical and futile conclusion. To this end, England have replaced Brad Barritt with George Ford on the bench, and I have to admit I'm salivating at the prospect of that lad (I'm allowed to say that: he's two years younger than I am) running at tired defenders with Farrell shifting to inside centre. If Barritt is parking the bus, then Ford is like chucking Messi on with 20 minutes left.

Meanwhile, and away from the game in question, Rugby League's Sam Burgess will be seeing the light, switching his codes and moving to Bath next season. He is expected to play centre, where England will suddenly be over-endowed in massive, speedy, wrecking-ball off-loading types. Manu Tuilagi is, we are told, not now far from a return but unlikely to feature in the tournament. With the Samoan tank-impressionist still to come back, Luther Burrell playing like he is and one of the best players of League in the world switching with the express desire of playing in the world cup, how Lancaster fits any, all, or something of a juggernaut-combo into his back line will be interesting, to say the least. In the end, the guy who comes out on top will probably be the one who proves he can do more than simply run over people, although sometimes that's the best way. Ask Dan Carter.

Across the water, Ireland have been quietly impressive so far, although their preferred tactics in their last game (namely, grinding down the opposition forwards, as if the Aviva Stadium were some sort of gargantuan mortar to Paul O'Connells monumental pestle) might hold rather less water against England at Twickenham than against Scotland and Wales in Dublin. A weak link there may well be, but there may well not be either (there's nothing to stop Wilson smashing Healy like an orange if both players are in the mood) and if there is, the only real opportunity to turn that hypothetically dodgy link into a corporeally recognisable points benefit is at scrum time. You never know, there might not be any knock-ons. The forecast looks good. My point is that Ireland will surely have more of a plan than 'put the fat guy on his arse' and that that may well involve increased involvement from their backs. They've been good, all of them, but Sexton aside they've not been setting the world alight in a trail-blazing dragon-blast of unstoppable attacking rugby fire. In fact their game plan against Wales was almost surprisingly one-dimensional, but with Joe Schimdt pulling the strings your money is on the Irish to know what they're about against anyone, anywhere.

I'm looking forward to this one, and at Twickenham I'm going to have to back... Ireland.

Reverse mockers, you see. None of my calls come true...

Round 2 Round-Up

The second weekend of the tournament continued to make a mockery of pre-game predictions, particularly those that started with the phrase: 'It'll be close'. In the event, none of this weeks games were, and France vs England remains the only game with less than 7 points between the sides. How crucial that score will be in deciding the final destination of the trophy remains to be seen, but despite the table England have emerged as one of the two best sides, and seeing as the other is Ireland, the next round could be very interesting indeed.

Ireland vs Wales
Much was made before this one of the Warren Gatland v Brian O'Driscoll, 'how-dare-you-drop-him?!' sub-plot. Irish romantics who were hoping for a match-defining contribution from the hand of BOD were to be disappointed though, as the Sluggin' in Dublin was decided by a stark triumph of brawn over brains. Specifically, Irish brawn, whose ferocity at the maul and breakdown out-muscled Wales to a worrying extent, if you happen to be Welsh. With the Irish travelling to Twickenham in two weeks time, where A) they suffered a similar forwards-based demolition job themselves 2 years ago and B) where they will face an England pack that has not been been outclassed by anyone, All Blacks included, since they played Wales last year, a close game looks set to be predicted. And then probably ignored by the players involved. With France playing like they are, the title is - potentially - there to be won for Ireland.

Wales, meanwhile, spectacularly failed to supply the improvement that was demanded after they stuttered past Italy last week. They looked, if anything, even more knackered and it's difficult to see what could be done to shake them up: one or two players aside, this was their strongest side. If they keep turning in performances of such little energy it may well be a case of a willing heart and unwilling limbs, though there was no sign of any such frailties in the leagues just before the 6 Nations began. Gatland has a job on his hands.

Scotland vs England
Anyone who has watched England play Scotland at Murrayfield in the last decade was eyeing up the pitch and pinpointing Owen Farrells right boot as the most important item of footwear in the ground. These are typically ferocious encounters, frequently decided by less than a try either way. Scotland were the other team that needed a big step up from the opening game - a limp performance in Dublin - and like Wales they steadfastly stuck to their guns and were duly shown to fresh depths of ineptitude. England won easily, Scotland hardly ever visited the opposition 22 and coach Scott Johnson was left to criticise his side for being 'naive' after dropping 2 of his most experienced players, Kelly Brown and Richie Gray, not just from the starting XV, but the squad altogether. This, understandably, has left many observers to wonder just how much cake the man wants, and also for at least one call for Stuart Hogg to be given the fly-half shirt. At this stage, giving their best attacking player the ball on a regular basis can hardly make them worse.

England, meanwhile, were disappointed not to score more than 20 points, and rightly so. Although there were encouraging signs of life from the back line (given the conditions, the opposition and the number of caps possessed by said line) they remain a work in progress, albeit one that is coming together rather pleasingly. Farrell is attacking with more purpose and Luther Burrell looks more assured in the centres than Joel Tomkins did in the autumn. It was the cutting edge of the finished article that was missing, and it is this that Ireland will test: England cannot afford to waste opportunities if they want to start being regular winners instead of unlucky losers. 

The other thing they can not afford to do is give away cheap ball with games on the line, as they did against France and New Zealand, to their cost. These came directly from England's own line-out, which is now habitually going to shit whenever Tom Youngs replaces Dylan Hartley at hooker, and did so again against Scotland. There was word in the week that Lee Mears had been brought in to help him sort his throwing out. It didn't work. Whilst it would be harsh and unwarranted to blame either of the defeats mentioned purely on Youngs' throwing, it is becoming too much of a trend to ignore, and needs to be shorn up. 

France vs Italy
France are still harder to work out than General Relativity equations. For long periods against Italy they possessed all the attacking flair of a bag of bricks in a bin, forced to defend desperately along their own try line and somehow, SOMEHOW managing to limit Italy to only a single try. A more clinical side would surely have scored more, given some of Italy's opportunities, and we might have had a very different game on our hands. As it was, France won at a canter thanks to 3 second half tries that game in spite of, rather than due to, their game plan. Two of these were down to the individual canniness of Wes Fofana, the other the bloody-mindedness of Louis Picamoles, but none of them came after a sustained period of attacking phases in Italy's half. They were sucker punches that the French got away with, unlike the ones thrown by Rabah Slimani and Michele Rizzo, which earned them a red card each. We were also treated to an early bid for Tosser of the Tournament from the confusingly-named Sebastien Vahaamahina, who was on for 2 minutes before kicking the ball away after the whistle in a dazzling display of petulance and receiving a yellow card, football style. He came back on after 10 minutes had elapsed for  a grand total of 30 seconds, whereupon the final whistle was blown.

Italy were, on the whole, hard done by, and should be supremely confident of beating Scotland in Rome. They're trying their damndest to play some decent attacking rugby and certainly look more likely than Scots, however when you're under the cosh for long periods of every game, as Italy are, then you can not afford to waste the opportunities you do create. Never mind missing out on potential tries, they need a goal kicker as a matter of urgency. Allan is still young enough to become a good one, but that won't help them much in this tournament. 

So, two games down, and the front runners look to be Ireland. France are two from two but were somewhat unconvincing, while England are starting to look good without being, as yet, excellent. See you in two weeks.

1st Weekend Round-Up

And there went the first weekend. Somebody (a teacher or summat, I don't know) once told me you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and equally the championship is not won over the opening round, as Wales so ably demonstrated last year. But that's not to say that some things can't be learned from it. Indeed, unless some teams do learn the odd snippet of oval ball wisdom, they may find the final weekends of the competition oddly superfluous. The first and second weekends are always crucial. To apply a cricketing saying, you can't win the game on the first morning, but you can sure as hell lose it. The same is true here, you can't win the 6 Nations in the first two games, but it can be lost, and with that in mind Wales may well be happier than England, despite not playing as fluently. Here we go then, game by game:

Wales vs Italy

In a little sweepstake before the game, myself and 3 others tried to guess how many tries the reigning champions would put past a team with more wooden spoons than Jamie Oliver. The numbers started at 3, which, in the event, proved to be far too generous, and made us look a right load of fools to boot. If anything, the game lent some credence to those who set their store by Lions burnout, with the men in red fielding 9 starters from the final test down under and looking more sluggish than a sloth wading through treacle. 

Italy, to general applause, turned up and played some decent rugby. Actually, they did their level best to make a mockery of their bottom-place predictions in a match that encouraged anyone with a crystal ball to chuck it on the nearest skip. I noted before the tournament began that they needed play makers, and they rocked up with 2. Tommaso Allan was very encouraging at 10, and Michele Campagnaro was even more so at inside centre, bagging himself a couple of tries. Teams need to take them seriously or risk paying the consequences. This nearly happened to England last year anyway, so there is a bit of an air of 'how many years do you need to learn this?' but to reiterate: teams heading to Rome need to beware. 

Wales, meanwhile, looked a shadow of the team that destroyed England in it's last 6N outing. Seeing as how they won, however, it now means bollock-all. You can put it down to whatever you want: there's the Lions thing, they may have been taking it easy because, y'know, Italy, and we are told every year (especially last year) that Wales are slow starters. Doesn't matter. They won despite not playing well which, as Sir Alex Ferguson will tell you, is the surest way to win trophies. The consensus seems to be that it will not be enough against Ireland next week, but A) you wouldn't bet on Gatland's team being that bad two games running and B) what if it is? Then everyone else really is doomed. In the end the class and settled nature of the side pulled them through.

France vs England

By far the most exciting game of the round, a rollicking start by France saw them 13 points up and England's back 3 mangled beyond recognition. I swear, Johnny May looked EXACTLY like Alex Goode after 5 minutes. Oh...

A brilliant fightback from England then saw them yield a hard-earned lead and fail to score themselves in the final quarter, meaning the only difference between this game and that of England v the All Blacks in the Autumn was the colour of the opposition's shirts. And the reaction. By and large, you don't mind losing to New Zealand, but this was a game that England could have won, and there was a definite sense of letting it slip rather than being outplayed. France probably had more riding on the result than England, and the term 'mixed bag' might apply. Some players, like Nyanga (I still can't pronounce that) were exceptional. Others (Basteraud, Medard) went missing, which is an achievement in itself given their size is measured in hands. 

You can argue France were lucky for their first two tries, but equally you can argue that you make your own luck and out on a rugby field, it's far easier to mix up the bad variety. For each of France's 3 tries there was a mistake from someone in England's back three (admittedly, two of those were made by players playing out of position, one aided by a diabolically-scheming bounce that made Blofeld look like an Oxfam volunteer). England last week had a pair of wingers with 1 cap between them, and next week are likely to have similar. It would help if they stayed on the field more than 5 minutes with only utility cover on the bench. There were good signs in attack though, with B. Vunipola showing no signs of stopping (literally) Burrell doing his best Tuilagi impression in the centre and Owen Farrell having his most accomplished England game, offensively speaking, to date. Even Danny Care was good, for Chrissakes, but they still looked like a team who hadn't really played before in the first half, which was because they were one. Time grows ever shorter, and England need to learn how to win these tight encounters.

Ireland vs Scotland

For 35 minutes this was a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, with both defences holding firm (a little too firm, from a neutrals perspective) against sustained periods of attack that wafted from side to side like a Caribbean wave on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The moon of this metaphor seemed not to be paying attention though, and for most of the first half our increasingly-complicated island had no tide, little wind, and the atmosphere of a librarians wake.

Then Ireland (and in particular Johnny Sexton) remembered that the aim of the game is the try line, and set about trying to get there. A searing run from Ireland's 10 nearly resulted in the game's first try (except Jamie Heaslip's feet were too big) and the men in green kicked on from there. Scotland were obviously enjoying their holidays too much to notice, though, and remained resolutely impotent, making this the most one-sided fixture of the opening round. Ireland, it should be noted, played probably the best rugby of anyone in these first 3 games, being the only side to have both a successful attack AND defence, which usually helps if you want to win. Rob Kearney, Jamie Heaslip and, of course, Sexton were all great going forward and not a man of them didn't do his duty in making sure the Scottish attack looked about as likely to score as Jim Davidson in a gay bar.

Not that they didn't have their fair share of the ball, Scotland, but that's the worrying thing. Rarely did they look like doing anything with it. In fact scoring opportunities were so rare throughout the game that they were raw. I.e. not cooked at all. I.e. they hardly scored, with just 3 points in each half a sorry return for 55% possession/territory stats in the opening period (these figures were both reduced massively after the break, when Ireland upped their game). To stand any chance of winning these games, especially away, you have simply got to make visits to the opposition 22 count. I may be guilty of prematurely judging a book by it's cover, but if they play like that for every game there's only going to be one contender for the wooden spoon this year, and it ain't gonna be Italy. Happy, Alessandro?

To sum up:
Wales and England both need to improve if they want last years finishing spots, and you sense that they both can. Ireland were good but not All-Blacks-game good, and will be looking for more, while France had the air of a team that had just won a ridiculous game of roulette. I still think they'll be found out. Italy looked encouraging. Scotland didn't. So if I had to predict the end table now, and so retrieve my crystal ball from it's skip and lay waste to my book-judging habits, it would be:

1. Ireland
2. Wales
3. England
4. Italy
5. France
6. Scotland

PS: I really wanted to put France last, but Scotland were that bad.
PPS: I also, being biased, wanted to put England top, but to do that they're going to have to beat both Wales and Ireland. Although both are at Twickenham, I don't see that happening.