There's a lot to catch up on.
After an autumn in which everyone (including Japan) played rugby except England and decided New Zealand were the best, England have taken a break from not playing rugby and joined in the Six Nations rugby tournament. France have switched from barely playing rugby to barely playing rugby but with different people barely playing it. Ireland are trying to play rugby from hospital, Scotland and Italy are trying with some success to play rugby but without winning any games of rugby (or chess. Or conkers. Let's face it, they couldn't beat a carpet.) and Wales are playing rugby, but not the rugby they were playing earlier on.
After an autumn in which everyone (including Japan) played rugby except England and decided New Zealand were the best, England have taken a break from not playing rugby and joined in the Six Nations rugby tournament. France have switched from barely playing rugby to barely playing rugby but with different people barely playing it. Ireland are trying to play rugby from hospital, Scotland and Italy are trying with some success to play rugby but without winning any games of rugby (or chess. Or conkers. Let's face it, they couldn't beat a carpet.) and Wales are playing rugby, but not the rugby they were playing earlier on.
Now that we're all back in the swing of things, we can talk about what an interesting position the tournament is at. Try as the southern hemisphere might, no amount of better-quality play (tries? Who needs 'em?) can match the 6N. It's a bit like the premier league in football: stick them in Europe and they get murdered by Barcelona, but the league is competitive enough to guarantee intrigue and many, many millions of shiny, shiny pounds. Rugby may lack the cash, but there's no denying the alluring call of the 6 team round-robin, so: defending 2-times champs Ireland are all but out of it after 2 games, and Wales are playing catch-up because of their draw but with power to take the unbeaten teams down. Of these - France and England - France have barely scraped the results and England look better placed (but not convincingly, securely or inevitably so) to pull off a Grand Slam. Italy and Scotland have done what they do every year, which unfortunately for Italians or Scots is talk optimistically, play optimistically, and lose habitually.
Perhaps that's me being harsh on Italians and Scots, but it does seem to be a repeating pattern. Like winter. For all the talk of Scotland being within minutes of a World Cup semi, they didn't extract a sweat from England (who didn't enter the World Cup, so who knows how far they'd have got?) on their home patch, though they did improve against Wales. Italy fared better against the French, then crumbled against England - again - when an interception try took the game away from them. Perhaps it's England being good: they're certainly the common denominator, but even the most vehement of fans would be hard-pushed to say they've improved that much.
Which is not to say they haven't at all, because they have. Just not drastically. There have been flashes. Filthy, tempting flashes. Owen Farrell's try against Italy was a glimpse and the way the pack controlled the second half against Scotland was a thoroughly professional job - but Eddie Jones is no miracle worker. The team as a whole still has a tendency to daft mistakes - like a man asking for 'EVERYTHING!' on his 2am post-match kebab. Everything was right up to that point, just - why? The way they've used the ball from the scrum has been... well, they haven't, have they? Coaches come and go, it seems, but old habits die hard. The hookers ARE hooking, apparently, and England have no problem winning their own ball, but quick ball from the base might be better than trying to buy penalties and giving the ball away again, maybe. Especially on the opposition 5m line. The midfield still doesn't have a settled pairing, something that dogged Stuart Lancaster like a bad penny (or a terrible pound) throughout his tenure, but then you can't expect Ma'a Nonu + Conrad Smith to be conjured up after 2 games. England remain a work in progress, but the yardstick the RFU will measure their investment in Jones by is championships. So the question is: have they progressed enough? The next 2 games, against Ireland and Wales, (and both at home) will go a way towards explanation.
Ireland, meanwhile, are desperate for a win. A raft of retirements and/or life-threatening hospitalisations have seen their pack lose the cutting edge that has seen the last 2 championships end up being presented under green ticker tape and being soaked in Leprechaun-scented champagne. To throw away a 13-point lead against Wales was bad, to lose against a French team that couldn't find it's arse with both hands would have been unthinkable with certain names - Paul O'Connell, Brian O'Driscoll, Cian Healy, Peter O'Mahony, Sean O'Brien - fit and at their best. Healy, at least, should be back against England, but Ireland need to remember how to unlock defences without the help of a certain TV pundit. They will be praying Jared Payne gets through his fitness test, especially travelling to the home of a team who have yet to concede a try in the championship.
Who's left? France. I've given up. If anyone would like to fill this paragraph in with what the hell is going on over there, who this 'Noves' chap is (if that IS his real name) and why in the name of Johnny you would leave your first choice front row ON THE BENCH to play the defending champions, or let the 2nd best kicker in the team have first dibs at kicking the 50m penalties ('ee needs dee prac-teese, Monsieur) then be my guest and send me the word doc. France remain as baffling as ever, which is fun if you're not French but must be bloody infuriating if you are. They seem determined to take under-performance to as-yet unplumbed depths, scouring their not-inconsiderably sized country for the cream of European rugby talent only to let it ferment into rancid vomit-inducing shit-cheese come match-day. This is, of course, a shameless attempt to reverse-mockers them into playing well against Wales.
Wales are also playing. Some of them are named Davies. The lad Biggar has epilepsy, which everyone seems to be ignoring, and Jamie Roberts has taken it upon himself to prove, once and for all, that all anyone needs in life is a good piss-up (he's been back to University). The play-two-sevens experiment has been ditched for tonight's game against France (everyone in this hemisphere ignores the fact that Aus play their second 7 at 8, not 6. That means you still have someone doing the hard graft so the pretty boys can practice their art of legal burglary at breakdowns, but you sacrifice the big-bulldozing ball-carrying tackle-smashing 8, and for Wales to do that you're talking about dropping Faletau. Aint gonna happen. Either copy Australia properly, or don't bother.) which should see balance restored to their back row. Roberts is in great form (Centurions.) and North took advantage of Scotland panicking about him (Roberts) running at them to find a bit of touch himself. If they don't beat France, I will eat one of those daffodil hats. This is, of course, a shameless attempt at mockers-ing (?) them into losing. Preferably badly.
To sum up, then: going into week 3 all six teams are still in with a shout (at least theoretically (in the same way that the story of Genesis is a theory)) of winning the championship. By Saturday night, that number might have been chopped in half, so this is crunch time for some teams. Will Wales be aiming to vomit spectacularly on the carpet of another England party at Twickenham? Will Ireland give themselves enough of a chance to justify stockpiling speculative amounts of Guinness? Will France - err - what will France do? Who knows, but it should be fun to watch.
Who's left? France. I've given up. If anyone would like to fill this paragraph in with what the hell is going on over there, who this 'Noves' chap is (if that IS his real name) and why in the name of Johnny you would leave your first choice front row ON THE BENCH to play the defending champions, or let the 2nd best kicker in the team have first dibs at kicking the 50m penalties ('ee needs dee prac-teese, Monsieur) then be my guest and send me the word doc. France remain as baffling as ever, which is fun if you're not French but must be bloody infuriating if you are. They seem determined to take under-performance to as-yet unplumbed depths, scouring their not-inconsiderably sized country for the cream of European rugby talent only to let it ferment into rancid vomit-inducing shit-cheese come match-day. This is, of course, a shameless attempt to reverse-mockers them into playing well against Wales.
Wales are also playing. Some of them are named Davies. The lad Biggar has epilepsy, which everyone seems to be ignoring, and Jamie Roberts has taken it upon himself to prove, once and for all, that all anyone needs in life is a good piss-up (he's been back to University). The play-two-sevens experiment has been ditched for tonight's game against France (everyone in this hemisphere ignores the fact that Aus play their second 7 at 8, not 6. That means you still have someone doing the hard graft so the pretty boys can practice their art of legal burglary at breakdowns, but you sacrifice the big-bulldozing ball-carrying tackle-smashing 8, and for Wales to do that you're talking about dropping Faletau. Aint gonna happen. Either copy Australia properly, or don't bother.) which should see balance restored to their back row. Roberts is in great form (Centurions.) and North took advantage of Scotland panicking about him (Roberts) running at them to find a bit of touch himself. If they don't beat France, I will eat one of those daffodil hats. This is, of course, a shameless attempt at mockers-ing (?) them into losing. Preferably badly.
To sum up, then: going into week 3 all six teams are still in with a shout (at least theoretically (in the same way that the story of Genesis is a theory)) of winning the championship. By Saturday night, that number might have been chopped in half, so this is crunch time for some teams. Will Wales be aiming to vomit spectacularly on the carpet of another England party at Twickenham? Will Ireland give themselves enough of a chance to justify stockpiling speculative amounts of Guinness? Will France - err - what will France do? Who knows, but it should be fun to watch.
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