France V Italy
The opening game of the six nations went pretty much as expected, with France looking relatively threatening and running in a few tries against a poor Italian side. The French passing was not slick enough to cause too much concern, although they did show the ability to score tries, which other teams seemed to struggle with. We are more likely to see how god they really are against Ireland at the weekend.
Italy will undoubtedly struggle to get any results in this year’s championship as they didn’t seem to have much direction. Their only real go forward was, just for a change, Parisse who showed his class.
The opening game of the six nations went pretty much as expected, with France looking relatively threatening and running in a few tries against a poor Italian side. The French passing was not slick enough to cause too much concern, although they did show the ability to score tries, which other teams seemed to struggle with. We are more likely to see how god they really are against Ireland at the weekend.
Italy will undoubtedly struggle to get any results in this year’s championship as they didn’t seem to have much direction. Their only real go forward was, just for a change, Parisse who showed his class.
Scotland V England
It doesn’t take a rugby guru to analyse this one. Scotland weren’t clinical and England’s discipline was fantastic – first penalty wasn’t until almost 20 minutes and that was for overpowering the Scots in the scrum.
It was extremely refreshing to watch the ball being turned over through errors rather than cynical offences. England sides of old would have killed the ball and given away 6 or 7 kickable penalties, dramatically changing the outlook of the tie.
The English defence was robust, Barritt and Farrell were impenetrable, and all players tackled looked to hit their men and put them down. I would have liked to have seen Dowson and Croft getting over the gain line more, and thought that Ben Morgan impressed albeit with a cameo role – be keen to see more of him against Italy.
With the ball in hand, the Saracens combinations looked the most threatening, with Barritt making some good hard yards running off Hodgson. Hopefully a few more weeks in camp will see the whole side gelling more and the back three being brought into the attack more as we saw in the Wales and Ireland backlines.
Scotland need to score tries and they will be a quality side. Denton and co. carried superbly and with some real pace and skill out wide, if they can just link up the play more in midfield they could well unlock less organised defences. I would like to see Ruardiah Jackson brought in for the tie at the Millenium Stadium.
Ireland V Wales
This game got me excited about the Lions tour in 2013, mainly because George North will be on our side! Also, I have always been a massive believer that scoring off first phase should not be so hard.
Without a doubt North was the best player on the pitch on Sunday. Mike Phillips took the man of the match award, but the impact that North had was as good as I have seen a winger have in a long time. He smashed through Fergus McFadden for the Jonathan Davies try as if he wasn’t there and scored his own try. Solid in defence and soft hands, if North stays on this kind of form and the Welsh pack can sort out their lineout, I think we will be seeing a Welsh Grand Slam come March 17th.
The Irish pack played well, with Rory Best standing out for me. Without Brian O’Driscoll marshalling the backline, the Irish lacked the cutting edge in attack. Rob Kearney was their best back and was great as ever under the high ball, and looked good with ball in hand as well.
The unfortunate talking point is once again the ‘spear’ tackles… I will leave you to discuss those…
Predictions for this weekend:
Italy V England – England by 12
France V Ireland – France by 9
Wales V Scotland – Wales by 18
Enjoy another weekend of 6 nations rugby…
Andy
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'd love to have 6 Nations packages and see this season's most exciting matches. You've game a an idea what that would be. Thanks.
ReplyDelete