The Third Half

Starting to get the serious heeby-jeebies for the England vs Ireland game…

Six Nations - Round 4 Thoughts

So an utterly epic win for Italy, a somewhat contreversial win for Wales and an ugly, dogged afair that saw England just about scrape a win saw off Round 4 of this year’s Six Nations.

Rather than re-hash all the play-by-play, I thought I’d offer a few thoughts on all three games.

Italy vs France

- Holy Mother of God. What an incredible result. Not the greatest game to watch, but the Italian side’s reaction at the final whistle along with a very emotional post match interview from coach Nick Mallet made it all worth it.

I’m just glad that Italy’s first really significant win in the Six Nations came at the expense of the French and not the English. They pushed us pretty hard last year and I’m not sure my ego would have recovered.

Having said that, I fully expect Italy to go on and get stuffed by the Scots next weekend. As far as they are concerned that was their World Cup Final and the result next week will matter not one iota.

Wales vs Ireland

Another slow game that didn’t really live up to the hype of the epic clashes between these two in years past. I’m convinced that the winner of this fixture every year receives a secret trophy that bears the inscription “The Winner of This Cup Shall Bear the Title of Ye That Doth Hate the English the Most”.

The Irish Golden Generation is more ‘Golden’ than ever and the Welsh can’t decide if they’re going to be a really good team or a really crap one.

I’m going to refrain from get involved in the Welsh try controversey and whether or not it should have stood. In my opinion it’s irrelevant. Those calls happen. End of. It came less than 10 minutes into the second half and Ireland had plenty of time to come back and win the game, they just weren’t good enough.

England vs Scotland

What a turgid piece of shite. Really. That game was played on the floor. Last time I checked rugby was a running/jumping/kicking sort of game. Not a flopping about on the floor while some giant-blonde-scottish-manboy steals your ball sort of game.

Couple of bonuses for England though - great to see Tom Croft back in action. Starter against the Irish please. And that goes for Jonny Wilkinson as well. Thought the back line looked streets better once he came on and Toby Flood could use a breather, poor boy looks exhausted.

Was I the only one who thought Andy Robinson’s head was actually going to explode at any minute during that game? The gnashing of the teeth and pursed lips, the swearing and the devil stares. Where was this passion when he was coaching England? Love it - really hope he gets the win next week his team so dearly deserves.

Six Nations: Round Three Thoughts

So wins for England, Wales and Ireland gave us three more games to ponder over.

So what did we learn?

1). England are starting to seriously gel as a team: Massive performance in a bruising encounter against our Gallic brothers. Much like the game we played against South Africa in the fall. Except we lost that one, so there’s clearly an improvement there. There’s been lots of talk about winning ugly and how that’s the sign of a good team. Huge shifts put in from Tom Wood, Dylan Hartley, Nick Easter and man-of-the-match Tom Palmer who is fast becoming a truly world class lock, in a wet, sloppy, forwards-dominated game that showed that England finally have a ‘Plan B’ after the game they tried to play in the first half was clearly not going to get them the result. England stepped up a gear in the second half, contested the breakdowns far more thoroughly and pulled away from a French team that, for all their bravery and daring, could not match.

2). How frigging good is Imanol Harinordoquy? Did not deserve to be on the losing side. Is he now the best back row player in world rugby? I would make that argument - Richie McCaw is a one trick pony (although it’s a magnificent trick) in that he is there to turn the ball over. Imanol can do that, contest the line outs, carry the ball with devastating effect and generally act as the mother of all disruptions for whatever team he is playing against. And he has an utterly cool name to boot.

3). When are Italy going to believe they can actually win games? They have the players, the coach, the ability, but I wonder just how much longer the occasional win over the Scots is going to be enough before someone says enough. Is that man Sergio Parisse? I hope so, the man deserves so much more than the wooden spoon every year.

4). Ditto for the Scots. I must say, I like Andy Robinson far more as Scotland coach than I did when he was coaching England. Even though his win to loss ratio is about the same.

5). I can’t say what I really want to about the Irish. My wife (yes I married one of them) is reading over my shoulder and I don’t have the strength to explain why my ‘horse bound for the glue factory’ analogy is totally legitimate. But suffice to say, they’ll be plenty of time for my anti-papist rantings in the weeks leading up to the Dublin game, so until then, I leave you with one of my favorite moments from a previous Six Nations England/Ireland encounter….

Le Crunch

So…Saturday sees the French arrive at Twickenham for what many (mostly the French) are calling the Grand Slam decider.

What shite. We’ve still got both the Scots and the Irish to play. And we play the Irish in Dublin. Which is always a hard ask. Mostly because the Irish are so miserable.

Here’s how the teams line up:

England: 15-Ben Foden, 14-Chris Ashton, 13-Mike Tindall (captain), 12-Shontayne Hape, 11-Mark Cueto, 10-Toby Flood, 9-Ben Youngs; 1-Andrew Sheridan, 2-Dylan Hartley, 3-Dan Cole, 4-Louis Deacon, 5-Tom Palmer, 6-Tom Wood, 7-James Haskell, 8-Nick Easter

Replacements: 16-Steve Thompson, 17-Alex Corbisiero, 18-Simon Shaw, 19-Hendre Fourie, 20-Danny Care, 21-Jonny Wilkinson, 22-Matt Banahan

France: 15-Clement Poitrenaud, 14-Yoann Huget, 13-Aurelien Rougerie, 12-Yannick Jauzion, 11-Vincent Clerk, 10-Francois Trinh-Duc, 9-Dimitri Yachvili; 1-Thomas Domingo, 2-William Servat, 3-Nicolas Mas, 4-Julien Pierre, 5-Lionel Nallet, 6-Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 7-Imanol Harinordoquy, 8-Sebastien Chabal

Replacements: 16-Guilhem Guirado, 17-Sylvain Marconnet, 18-Jerome Thion, 19-Julien Bonnaire, 20-Morgan Parra, 21-Damien Traille, 22-Alexis Palisson

Just look at that French backrow. Terrifying. Three absolute monsters of world rugby. But I am pretty happy with the balance on the English team right now and the French do not traditionally travel well, so I am predicting a comfortable win for the English.

Here’s some match facts courtesy of the BBC:

Head-to-head

• England and France have met 93 times, with England leading by 50 wins to 36.
• France ended a run of three straight defeats against England with a 12-10 victory in Paris last year.
• The last draw between these sides came in 1985, when it finished 9-9 at Twickenham.

England

• Have won nine of their last 11 Six Nations matches at Twickenham.
• Have scored 10 tries in their opening two games, four more than they managed in the whole of last year’s championship.
• Have won more line-outs (24) and lost fewer (one) than any other nation in this year’s championship.

France

• Have won their last eight Six Nations matches, since a 34-10 defeat at Twickenham in March 2009.
• Have conceded the fewest number of penalties in this year’s championship (17).
• Are chasing a fourth Grand Slam in 10 years, having won in 2002, 2004, and 2010.

Of course, all of this is meaningless as this is a new year and two new teams. I just hope the match delivers on what all the build up has promised.

Inside the heart of a rugby international

Wonderful blog post from the BBC’s Tom Fordyce on what’s it’s like to play in a rugby international with some insights from England’s Tom Wood, Ben Youngs, Dylan Hartley, Toby Flood and Chris Ashton.