6 Nations Thread..

I’m seriously hoping the English fall this weekend; one can dream. Meanwhile, the bookies in Ireland are currently showing:

England
France
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Italy

as the finishing order. Looks like France has to still be to taken seriously, which is bad news for me as we have them this weekend. If we win, I’m on a liquid bulking diet all day.

England will trounce the bloody nether regions!

Well done scotland though (yes i know this is late!)

Great match between Ireland and France. Can’t help but think those early mistakes may have cost them, but a great second half performance.

England on soon :smiley:

my pre-match prediction
9-47 to England, that might turn out to be a little optomistic though.

[quote]alstan90 wrote:
Great match between Ireland and France. Can’t help but think those early mistakes may have cost them, but a great second half performance.

England on soon :smiley:

my pre-match prediction
9-47 to England, that might turn out to be a little optomistic though.[/quote]

was a good match. too many mistakes from the irish- cost them the match.

England Italy will be a stunner

Italy - England …

well, italy played a good blitz defense which frustrated England somewhat. I tried to view the game as a neautral and thought credit was due to the italians as they played a simple gameplan and frustrated england, although often bordering on the offside.

England played ok, will be happy with a win i suppose but a poor performance from several outside backs. Lineouts were good, scrums ok - nothing special. Shame we didnt have the attitude in this game that the Irish - French showed an couple of hours earlier.
A bizarre game with two contrasting highly entertaining halfs.

Wales - Scotland tomorrow? i dont know???

England played ok in the second half i’d say; when their play was not so narrow, because of less reliance on the forwards. But; nonetheless England scored a try just as Dallaglio came on, like in the Wales game. His prescence seems to give the side a lift. I was quite dissapointed with Voyce though, the Italians defense meant he was all but useless.

As for my original prediction; well that was a bit foolish in retrospect, except the “9” bit was looking good until Italy got their late try.

[quote]supermick wrote:

Wales - Scotland tomorrow? i dont know???[/quote]

my money is on wales but its going to be a cracking game!

[quote]supermick wrote:
Chris Jayne wrote:
All rugby players should be big. Wales always used to field big guys but their current team is much smaller than Englands. not on. England dominated in the scrum on saturday due to sheer bulk.

somewhat agree.
There was a size difference of approximately 1 stone per man. England fielded 15 athletes on saturday whereas wales’ team represented more of a “traditional” rugby build - with higher levels of bodyfat than their oposite English numbers, especially in the tight 5. This has been the case for a number of years now. Compare Andrew sheridan with either of the jones boys to illustrate my point.[/quote]

Over the whole pitch England were 76kg heavier than Wales, thats an extra player; be it a winger.

Christ on a bike but the Irish match was something awful to watch for the first 40 mins. I was ready to go for home and I’m a Bitter Ender for matches normally. It was terrible.

We came back in the 2nd, which makes me think if we could’ve start playing like that 10 mins earlier, we could have won. Depressing and it seems to be always the Irish result (“If only … could’ve won”).

Interesting side notes is that the French coach said that he didn’t know why the Irish were so much fitter than the French but they were. Didn’t know that. And Eddie O’Sullivan said that we managed to make an entire season’s worth of mistakes in one half of a match. Pretty impressive. Maybe we won’t make any more and we’ll end up winning the tournament!

Could have been a complete disaster but wasn’t.

[quote]alstan90 wrote:
Over the whole pitch England were 76kg heavier than Wales
[/quote]

Fat English Bastards.

[quote]flynniec6 wrote:
Christ on a bike but the Irish match was something awful to watch for the first 40 mins. I was ready to go for home and I’m a Bitter Ender for matches normally. It was terrible.

We came back in the 2nd, which makes me think if we could’ve start playing like that 10 mins earlier, we could have won. Depressing and it seems to be always the Irish result (“If only … could’ve won”).

Interesting side notes is that the French coach said that he didn’t know why the Irish were so much fitter than the French but they were. Didn’t know that. And Eddie O’Sullivan said that we managed to make an entire season’s worth of mistakes in one half of a match. Pretty impressive. Maybe we won’t make any more and we’ll end up winning the tournament!

Could have been a complete disaster but wasn’t.[/quote]

Ireland really were out of sorts in the first half; but then the French were for most of the second. So I guess it was fair.

I may be the slightest bit bias being a sharks fan but i don’t understand the french not using chabal, he’s been outstanding this season both in the premiership and heineken cup.

Would also like to see England bring in Tom Varndell at some point.

[quote]Mike_higginson wrote:
I may be the slightest bit bias being a sharks fan but i don’t understand the french not using chabal, he’s been outstanding this season both in the premiership and heineken cup.

Would also like to see England bring in Tom Varndell at some point.

[/quote]
Agree with the chabal point. He’s been awesome this year.

maybe not so much a case of out of mind out f sight but rather out of mind out of favour??

also - mike ruddock??? wtf?

[quote]supermick wrote:

also - mike ruddock??? wtf?
[/quote]

i did not see that one coming! hopefully wales will pull through it for the remainder of the tournement. ive heard so many reasons stated for his departure- from family problems to a player rebellion- but whatever he reason it is really bad timing!

[quote]Chris Jayne wrote:
supermick wrote:

also - mike ruddock??? wtf?

i did not see that one coming! hopefully wales will pull through it for the remainder of the tournement. ive heard so many reasons stated for his departure- from family problems to a player rebellion- but whatever he reason it is really bad timing![/quote]
too true.
i definately am not convinced concerning the reason officially stated or he would have gone earlier when pressures imo were greater?
Maybe something will come to light today.

It’s highly unusual for a coach to leave after a win in any sport; and a good one at that.

Do you think the ‘player power’ rumours are true? Ruddock always struck me as a decent bloke.

Supermick - what are your thoughts on Andy Robinson? I’m not convinced. If the RFU decide to replace him (not much chance of that in my opinion) they need to do it right after the 6N. Or maybe we just need a new backs coach?

[quote]will-of-iron wrote:
Do you think the ‘player power’ rumours are true? Ruddock always struck me as a decent bloke.

Supermick - what are your thoughts on Andy Robinson? I’m not convinced. If the RFU decide to replace him (not much chance of that in my opinion) they need to do it right after the 6N. Or maybe we just need a new backs coach?[/quote]

I muat admit i like how the rfu run the england set up. For now robinson is the man imo. No coach in the world can get over loosing so much talent and the spate of injuries that England have had to put up with. These things take time and the past two years have by no means been a disaster. Australia have a knack of peaking at world cups and i believe thats where we are heading. Were starting to do things well again, lineouts are working better, scrummaging is better - all this and we have another 16-18 months to peak for 2007.
Compare that to new zealand who have been at a peak for over 12 months - can they maintain it for 2-3 years? Or wales who peaked last year, were average in the autumn internationals and no have signs of something bad in the camp?
I think were heading in the right direction.
You do have a good point concerning the backs though. Compare french passing and running with our backs? - you cant. why this is i dont know? maybe more games are needed? maybe a change up? maybe a decision making centre (Think catt in the world cup)? Wilkinsons also on the mend.
Be interesting to see how others - maybe southern hemisphere guys to get an opinion not filled with hate (jk) on English back play.

Thought I should get this thread goin again especially after Jonny wilkinson returns for his first game since the world cup 3 and a half years ago and scores a record 27 points in a calcutta cup match (although his try was a little lucky:)!!) and gets the man of the match award (should have been ellis really but heh!). Just hope it isn’t a one off and England start to build a good squad and run of performances for the world cup.

As for who will win the 6 nations, everyone has tipped Ireland but France were pretty strong yesterday and Italy are no pushover these days so I’m goin with them. I think it’ll be an interesting game 2day with wales and Ireland tho which could really make or break both teams 6 nations!!

I know this thread is dead and buried, but as proud Scotsman (no wise cracks) I have to put something down here, since the Scots have been completely ignored through this entire thread!

Although the championship was a disaster for us, I think the emergence of a few playes was some consolation, and if you look at the result against Ireland (one of the favourites for the WC) I think it indicates that the Scots could get a result against anyone on their day!

I would put Scotland as 90% as good as England at the moment.

In particular the Scottish tighthead Murray looked to be the best on display in the championship! He has Arnold genetics and is a very strong guy!!!