A Hooligan's Game Played by Gentleman

Where: Twickenham Stadium, England
When: Saturday 2nd Feb, 16:00 GMT

What: The fixture that everyone loves to hate, England v Scotland is usually a pretty dour affair, although it's often far worse when it's in Edinburgh. Scotland's record at Twickenham is not good at all - they last won there in 1983 - and England are high on confidence at the moment.

A year ago, Scotland were confident of some success with Andy Robinson in place and some good young players making names for themselves. Then they lost every match of the 6 Nations. The following summer saw them snatch a priceless away win in Australia in the wind and rain, before narrowly defeating an excellent Samoa side. Then came the AIs, and some promising moments against New Zealand were blown away by the Kiwis scoring 6 tries. More defeats followed, most embarrassingly to Tonga, and the shame was too much for Andy Robinson to continue.

So here they are, with a new coach and a weakened team. The new coach is a loudmouth known for his time in Welsh rugby and his aged beach bum looks. It's difficult to see him having much impact on Scotland but stranger things have happened. The team is different to 12 months ago but there's some hope in the form of Dutchman Tim Visser (who scored two tries against the All Blacks), Sean Maitland (a kilted Kiwi who came from the Crusaders), Stuart Hogg's attacking flair at fullback, and Ryan Grant's emergence as a force at loosehead prop. The problems are the form of both their second rows; Richie Gray is enduring an awful season after his surprise move to Sale Sharks, and Jim Hamilton gets older, slower, and clumsier. The backrow is functional rather than brilliant, although Kelly Brown is in good nick, and they'll miss Ross Rennie's scavenging at the breakdown. Last season's revelation, Dave Denton, is relegated to the bench.

As for the hosts, these are pretty good times to be an England hopeful - better than at any point since Clive Woodward was in charge. England are not world beaters yet and may not ever get there, but the squad is young, exciting, and clearly enjoying themselves. Last year's 6N saw Lancaster's debut as head coach and featured an almost brand new side; as a result, they concentrated on defence first and ground their way past the first few matches. As time has passed, older players who were brought in to "do a job" have been phased out, and the young talent from the club game have been given their chance to shine. Lancaster's spent a long time dealing with the academies and coaching the Under 20s, and knows an awful lot of the younger players as a result. This is almost a weakness - there does appear to some serious favouritism that's seen some odd names jump ahead in the queue - but it's not a closed shop and these guys are getting vital exposure to international rugby at an early age.

England have come a long way since the last 6N. A really tough tour to South Africa saw them lose the first two matches, with their physicality questioned and their work at the breakdown sneered at. A battling draw in the final Test saw them make a few baby steps towards fixing these issues, but it was clear more work was required. Come the AIs, and the first cracks appeared. Fiji were disposed of easily enough, but Australia rocked up looked for a big win after their humiliation by France, and proceeded to teach England a lesson. England's plan at the breakdown was exposed by superior numbers, their defence cracked open time and again by Australia's short kicking game, and their set piece conceded penalties and ground with young Joe Marler struggling with injury and a canny opposite number. Confidence was dented, and mutterings were heard about some late captaincy decisions by Chris Robshaw. Despite all this, England were still incredibly close to winning the game.

Next up were South Africa, with everyone predicting doom and gloom for this callow England side. What transpired was a fairly low-quality affair, but England had the better of the breakdown battle and edged the physical contest. This obvious improvement from the summer tour was ignored in favour of more abuse aimed at Robshaw's captaincy, with more contentious decision making at the end of a tight game. Again, England lost. This time they really should have won. Coulda woulda shoulda.

Then came the world champions, New Zealand. NZ hadn't lost at Twickenham since 2002, and while they never really enjoyed playing England there, no-one gave England a prayer.

Welp.

Right from the kick-off, England's pack absolutely tore into the All Blacks. The Kiwis were annihilated at the breakdown and, forced onto the back foot, started making errors under pressure. Owen Farrell (nominated for World Player of the Year, amusingly enough) kicked his goals and England went into the break 15-0 up, having dominated the match from the first minute. But NZ came back like we knew they would, with two lethal quickfire tries. England's lead was down to 1 point in no time at all, and it looked like yet another match where NZ would just run away with it. Only, not this time. England redoubled their efforts, and scored 3 tries in 8 minutes, playing coruscating rugby and simply ripping the NZ defence apart. A late rally brought the score down but England triumphed 38-21, one of the biggest defeats in New Zealand's history.

And that's where England stand now. One big change has been made: Manu Tuilagi's out injured, so the awesomely named Billy Twelvetrees (aka '36') comes in at 13 to add some attacking flair to the backline. Young players like Joe Marler, Tom Youngs, and Joe Launchbury are being rewarded after good displays on tour or in the autumn. It's an exciting young side and anything could happen. Even Owen Farrell might run the ball a bit.

At home, England should win. In fact, I think England will win by at least 20 points. Scotland are a bit of a mess and England are heading in the right direction. I also think this will be an entertaining game - Scotland's best chance of success is to really attack England with ball in hand, and England are gravitating towards that kind of game.

My fingers ache.

I think the best match of the Six Nations just happened. And it was the first one. It's going to be hard to beat that in terms of sheer excitement.

20 points! cough, splutter.

Typical English arrogance. [/Telfer]
You gave them a bit of a kicking, to be honest, with Twelvetrees looking a good option. It did amuse me that they yanked Youngs, ostensibly for discipline, and replaced him with Hartley.

I wasn't too far out, but I did not expect that. Utter, utter dross from Wales for much of the game then Tipuric comes on and the breakdown improves, the game breaks down and all hell breaks loose. Still nowhere near good enough, the team performance gets a 5/10 total. Seems pretty apt as, once again, they only played a single half of rugby, and it's overly generous given just how bad the first half was. Point that Jam made to me previously seems to be true- Sean Edwards is on the slide. Our defence is really poor- couple of tries were let in by players not paying attention.
Tipuric absolutely has to start next week, for very obvious reasons. Coombs gave a pretty good display of himself as well- he gave away a cheap turnover but again, he put in an absolutely huge shift.
Ah well, let's see if the Howleycaust continues, shall we?

So, very very late, here's France vs Italy.


Where: Olimpico Stadium, Rome.
When: 1500GMT, Sunday 3rd February 2013

What: I'm going to keep this one brief and give them a proper run-down next week or I may fall over. I'm also studiously avoiding trying to follow Jam's post.

France start with a pretty standard set-up. They've got high-quality props and centres coming out of their ears and a scrum-half at 10. Dusautoir is back, Ouedraogo gets the nod at 6, They were taken pretty close by a very high-quality Samoan side, although they demolished the Aussies, something the Gargoyles couldn't do. Still, they're on a roll, the Top14 is destroying their players but making a great show of it and Harinordoquy isn't in the side. Pay close attention to their 12/13/14 line. Fritz seems to be in a purple patch and Fofana is a menace with ball in hand.

Italy put out the team they have, more or less. Castro's starting, Orquera will be hoping that his boot looks a bit better and there are no Bergamascos in sight. They'll also take some heart from the AIs where they kept the AB within 50 and should have beaten Australia, a feeling I know really. Fucking. Well. They've got the French at home, which promises a good overall crowd but gives the Italians a slightly bigger boost.

TL, DR: France have too many good players and will win by twelve.

Forza azzurri!

I'll post my thoughts from the weekend a little later. They may well involve the word 'spanners'.

Okay, so later means tomorrow, but here's what I think:

Scotland: outclassed. Grant was keen, Beattie carried well and Hogg was possibly their start performer. Other than that, the Scots just didn't have enough to stop the English nor break them open. They showed some flashes of form that they've failed to of late, but I feel that their pack doesn't have the strength to really grind a game out. Their defence is pretty leaky, too, and they stopped blitzing rather earlier than I expected. . They'll be competing with Wales for the Spoon this time around.

England: the tournament is theirs to lose. They have enough players of sufficient strength and skill to cover for injuries, although Goode might not start against Ireland. They've got a tight-five performing very well with a rather upset Saint looking to play, Robshaw simply leading by example and Farrell looking cool under pressure. I'll be interested to see what they do with Tuilagi back- whether 36 starts at 12 or Tuilagi comes on as an impact sub.

Ireland: much will be made of the Irish performance, and they were far and away the better team on the day. They scored well, they defended hard and O'Brien had a pretty good game (although he's now been put sharply on his backside by backs twice, once by someone under 6ft- just like Jamie Roberts!). What concerns me is that in the second half they let back in a team I can only charitably describe as a complete bag of spanners.
'course, they did hold them off with a defence of bulldog tenacity, and they became aware of the idiosyncrasies of M. Poite early in the game. Kudos to them.
Zebo was swish on attack, and will earn an endless number of drinks for his display of personal skill, but I'm not sure about his defence. He made one good blitz tackle, true. Healy was a force around the pack and tackled well, as did the rest of the pack. Best had a great game, BOD shut a few people up and everyone else performed as expected. I would like to see Ireland carry this performance on, and I would like to see them do well this year.

Wales: too many players having bad performances or off-form led to an abject performance. The first half consisted of a few players defending and the rest seemingly sulking over some half-perceived slight. Coombs gave a great show of himself and may well start next week, 1/2p was his usual solid self and took his try very well. Faletua worked very hard but still has problems punching holes in defences, which he shouldn't. Tipuric was a whirligig, blitzing around the park and holding the team together. North was half-decent (still got great hands) when he finally got into the game, although I think he's taken a bad knock or two and it's made him shy of contact. The rest of the team all had major deficiencies in one area or another.
I would be interested to know what was said at half-time. I expect some approximation of "Fuck it, boys, we got nothin' to lose. Go chuck that ball around a bit." They still left themselves too much to do, they massacred a couple of opportunities and should have taken the penalty points at least once. Their first-half performance was dire; a dismal shower of the sort seldom seen outside Conwy. Overall outlook. spooooooooooooooooon!


Italy: yowza. Game of the weekend for me. The Italians played better rugby than I think we've seen them play so far. They out-played the French in nearly every aspect of the game. They kept the ball tight and hard when they needed to, they kicked well and their two star performers, Parisse and Orquera, had brilliant games. Both took complete charge of their parts of the game and the team ticked over very well. Hugely impressed by the performance from Italy, and I wish that sounded less condescending than it does. They planted themselves firm and prepared themselves well for all the French could bring to Rome, and they dealt with all of it well. Even more than Ireland, I hope that Italy do carry this in their hearts. Is it too soon to call for the first Italian Grand Slam? (Yes).


France: the French, ahh well. There was something missing in the French performance, a certain je ne sais quoi (tr: a fly-half). Whether they thought that they could arrive and the Italians would capitulate or they haven't been allowed enough time to prepare is not quite clear yet. Their fabled front-five were underwhelming around the park, with Szarzewski having spent more time preparing his hair than his lineout or, quite frankly his round-the-park game. His is certainly not M.Servat. Picamoles had a quiet game and Dusautoir couldn't seem to do enough work to cover for the lack of grunt out of Ouedraogo. The back-line didn't seem to function very well at all, with Huget being the stand-out player there. Fofana didn't get into the game at all, and it all falls on Michalak. I think he bottled it; there's a reason we use the word mercurial; it separates those fly-halves from the Carters, Wilkinsons and, sod it, Johns.

The problem with that result is that it leaves Wales facing the talons of an irascible cockatrice. Not that it makes much difference at this rate.


What did everyone else think?

I reject your efforts to try and get more discussion going.


(I'll put my thoughts down when I get a block of time to do so)

Where: Murrayfield
When: 1430 GMT, Saturday 9th February.

What:
Scotland have had a torrid time these last years. They've never quite seemed to discover what malaise afflicts them; at least they're scoring tries now. There are a couple of changes to the Scottish team- Ross Ford starts this week. He's a big chap and should be a decent hooker but he never seems to have the impact one might expect. Strokosch is injured so Rob Harley gets a run-out this week. I'll admit to not following the Scottish teams at all so I don't know his form, but he's played one game for Scotland and scored, I believe.
Other than that, it's the same Scottish team we all saw getting manhandled in Twickenham last week.

Italy are the same. They lose one man to injury, their rather good centre Sgarbi, and replace him with the experienced Canale.

How will this match look? Well, both teams have a pack with a few big carrying monsters. Both tend to play a slower, tighter game and like to keep things ticking at a steady pace. Both have back divisions with a few creativity issues, although Italy now look like they can handle themselves. Scotland have a few fitness issues, particularly in defence, and the Italians started to show a few ragged edges toward the end of last week, so we might see some very tired rugby come the end of the game. I wouldn't expect any champagne rugby here. It'll probably be dirty and brutal. Keep a particular eye on the lock/backrow battle. Both of these pods will be eyeing each other up, with Italy aware that Brown and Beattie will work hard, and Scotland aware of the dangers of Parisse and Zanni.

In years past this has been the wooden spoon decider, but I don't think that's the case this year. Italy played better rugby last week, but Scotland are at home and they're used to beating Italy here. It's a hard one to call this, but I'm going to start the bandwagon rolling and say Italy by three to five.

Where: Stade de France
When: 1730 GMT, Saturday 9th February.

What:France will be mighty upset. Very upset indeed, which bodes poorly for us. The French, the maxim(e) goes, are consistently inconsistent. Which isn't to say they can lose to anyone because they lack skill or depth, but more an indication that the Gallic temperament isn't a stereotype.

That's why I'm worried. Not much has changed in the French pack. Pape is injured so Dusautoir will take over the captaincy. He's running as smoothly as he usually does, but Dusautoir at 80% would suffice for nearly any other team. Replacing Paper is Jocelino Suta, who debuted in the manhandling of Australia in the Autumn. For reasons I'm not entirely sure about, Fritz is dropped to the bench for Bastareaud. Bastareaud's been good the couple of times I've seen him play, and he's been in the wilderness a while now, but I would have thought Mermoz was the weak link in the French centres- Fritz can shift inside, can't he? Fofana finds himself stranded out on the wing again, where he doesn't get the ball. That's a travesty and I expect him to rectify it by hunting for the ball- Huget should be able to cover the wing. Actually, speaking of wingers, whatever happened to Malzieu? Michalak is being given another chance- I suspect it's because their other choice are Trinh-Duc or Parra, neither of which I particularly like (although if Parra comes on expect to see Roberts/North run the ten channel ALL THE TIME, and not for tactical reasons).

Wales ring in a couple of changes. Kohn is injured and fails to make the bench. Gethin hangs onto his position for reasons no-one quite knows about given just how out of sorts he is. Richard Hibbard is fit so Matthew Rees is dropped entirely- Hibbard's a similar sort of player but our current best option. Shingler drops to the bench as Ryan Jones is fit; Jones will also take the captaincy as Warburton is 'injured'. As such, Tipuric starts, finally! One of those two will be replaced by Warburton next match, sadly. There are also a couple of surprises on the bench- first, LOU REED, and second, no Lee Byrne. Byrne's playing well, I hear, for the high-flying Clermont at the moment and I expected to see him given a chance. My personal preference would be for Cuthbert to drop to the bench (or out) as he has a tendency to get exposed in defence, put Halfpenny on the wing and give Byrne a shot. Maybe not. Davies will be hoping he doesn't have the nightmare he had last time- he was instrumental in Zebo's try as he bought the dummy runner and had to chase down BOD (he did), 1/2p had to commit to BOD in case JJD missed and Cuthbert was playing cricket. That plus his two passes into touch made me wish I didn't think so highly of him. Ah, heartbreak, how well dost your embrace comfort me.

This is going to be even more brutal than the above match. The Welsh pack are missing a lot of grunt, either through injury or, well, past injuries. The French pack could go toe-to-toe with Polyphemus and come away grinning. If they find it in themselves, of course. It's going to be a full-on prison shanking (or, alternatively, something like the video I linked above) if France decide to play a growling, blood-spitting forward oriented game. I don't think we've got the strength to hold off the sheer mass that stands over us. If the game opens up I don't see much in our favour either. We've got some options but we're sorely lacking in creativity and I don't trust our defence against either the mountain-moving Bastareaud or the flitting, darting heft of Fofana. The French might have some problems if we start to probe the cracks out wide, but I don't think we have the brains for that at the moment.

Scoreline? France by seven.

I am no longer allowed to talk about rugby of any standard. I'm sure you've all got thoughts on... proceedings this weekend so far. I'm saving mine for the aftermath of tomorrow.

I caught the second half of France v Wales due to a time zone mishap. I thought the ref was pinging the wrong side in many scrums, French loose head rarely bound on his opposite number.

Were they playing on freshly-laid sod?

Bah, so I lied before.

Scotland v Italy - how fragile Italian confidence can be, eh? Orquera predictably had a shocker, but more worryingly they were second best to every loose ball and last week's success apparently convinced them they needed to panic with their passing and offloading game. Several times they came close to putting together good attacks but overdid it. Still a long way to go for Italy but at least they haven't reverted to type yet.

Scotland looked good, clearly up for the fight in defence and took confidence from the effect they were having on Orquera and friends. It was still all a bit low quality until Jackson's lovely little dummy and delayed pass for Visser's try which I think persuaded them to show some composure, and they never looked like losing after that. Nice intercept by Hogg but I'm never too keen on going nuts over intercept tries :) The ginger lad Harley was excellent on the flank, ditto Kelly Brown, but of course ex-scrumhalf Andy Nicol gave the MOTM to a scrumhalf. BBC, BBC never changes.

France v Wales - Oh my god! France have finally attained some consistency! They're consistently bottling it. Michalak was even worse than the pitch, and the French side reminded me of nothing more than England of a few years back. Lots of physicality, some big bastards, but literally no ideas beyond one-out runners and trying to pick and go or bash people in the centre. Given they have an awesome 12 like Fofana available to them it's baffling that they've persisted with Mermoz and stuck Fofana out on the wing where he can influence virtually nothing. Basteraud ran into a lot of people and obviously caused a lot of problems, but like Tuilagi for England the secret isn't to have him run into brick walls all day - you've got to either trying and get him some space or ensure you flood the gaps he creates. France did neither and thoroughly deserved to lose. All brawn and very little craft.

Wales were poor for most of that match but on the flip side a couple of players stood up to be counted (again). Ryan Jones and Mike Phillips looked a bit like the players of old (although Adam Jones doesn't), and they tackled France to a standstill. Ultimately they weren't a great deal better than France, but they did at least have a few players who showed composure under pressure in key positions with Biggar and Halfpenny doing enough to give Wales the win.

A great result but dear god an awful, awful match. I'd rather scrub my own eyes with bleach than watch that one again.

Preview for today's hilarity to come.

Where: The Aviva Stadium, Dublin

When: Sunday 10th February, 15:00GMT

What: Ireland have been England's bogey team for some time now. In the last ten years, Ireland have won 7 6N contests. It's fair to say that England are Ireland's bunnies, particularly when matches are played in Ireland. While a lot of Irish rugby fans are somewhat morose about the state of their game at the moment, and England fans are fairly upbeat, it's fair to say that whatever the bookies might think, Ireland are favourites for this one.

Ireland looked pretty good in the first half in Cardiff and didn't give Wales a sniff. How much of this was down to Wales looking like they'd overdosed on valium is difficult to say, but Ireland looked near their Grand Slam best for those 40 minutes. BOD produced some magic straight out of 5 years ago, Zebo produced a ridiculous bit of skill, and the pack were rampant. Last season's aberration at Twickenham was almost entirely down to the loss of Mike Ross after the first scrum, which allowed England to win penalty after penalty and crush the Irish pack in the tight. Now they're all fully fit, and the starting front row of Healy, Best, and Ross has the edge over the callow youth of Marler + Youngs, with only Cole knowing what to expect and able to hold his own. Ireland also have a clear edge in the backrow. Not because of any massive talent disparity, but because of balance; England have chosen flanker Tom Wood to play 8 and brought James Haskell into blindside, meaning that England have a backrow formed entirely of players who have played the majority of their rugby at 6. OK, so Robshaw is doing just fine as a 7 and Sean O'Brien is not exactly a classical 7 either, but you have to wonder if this is a gamble too far.

Basically this is the same Irish team as we've been seeing for a while, with a youthful spark added where necessary. Mike McCarthy adds some real beef and spite to the second row - though I wonder if he's a little too fond of niggling off the ball, having seen it up close a couple of times in the Heineken Cup - and Craig Gilroy + Simon Zebo on the wings are exciting and unpredictable. They're a good side and a lot will come down to preparation and coaching, something that a lot of Irish fans think could be done a lot better by someone who isn't Declan Kidney.

Given the weather conditions, I expect the newer names to not feature as much as people like Rob Kearney, Mike Ross, and Jamie Heaslip. Secure ball at the set piece and work under the high ball will be crucial.

England are in that weird position where nearly every selection decision seems to pay off and they never look in danger of completely falling apart. Even when they've lost against big teams, they've always kept themselves in contention and made their opponents work for a win. In short, they're in a perfect position for them to rock up to Dublin and get completely taken apart amid accusations of arrogance, complacency, and a lack of talent.

Ahem.

With the heavens set to open around kickoff, Owen Farrell's kicking game will be even more crucial than normal. Last time he was in Ireland, he was busy bottling it in front of the posts for Saracens who threw away a win in Thomond Park against Munster, so I hope he's gotten over that. Billy Twelvetrees will take some of the pressure off with his kicking game at 12 - retaining him was a big call but I'd always back the fully fit form guy over an injury doubt - but this'll be a huge test for the two young men in midfield. Mike Brown continues on the wing despite Alex Goode's fairly dreadful performance at 15 last time out, and having two fullbacks in the back three might prove to be wise if the weather is as bad as predicted. But this is all fairly irrelevant, as England know that the trick to winning in Dublin is breakdown intensity and stopping the Irish from holding up the big runners.

A lot will rest on young shoulders. Tom Youngs will be up against an excellent lineout unit and under a lot of pressure from the home support. Joe Marler will be scrummaging against an old clubmate and will do well to fight Ross to a draw. I think Ireland will get the edge up front but I don't expect an Australia-style swing in the scrums. Tom Wood's going to have be really accurate at the base of the scrum if England are going to get away with clean ball.

One area where England appear to have a real advantage is on the bench. Hartley, Vunipola, Lawes, Waldrom, Care, Tuilagi, and Flood (sorry Davey Wilson...) make for genuine impact and Ireland don't have quite the same quality available to them. Ireland fell away badly in the second half against Wales, and if England are still in touch with 30 to go they'll be confident of hammering home a win with the reinforcements available to them.

Two confident sides, both bringing through good youngsters and with a decent win under their belts. It's really too close to call - head says Ireland by 3, heart says England by 2.

Oh God, I'm so sorry you watched that. It's interesting to hear a neutral think that the French were at fault- I thought similarly, and I thought the French were hinging. Adam Jones was poor and I think he's actually still injured/needing surgery so it's hard to tell.
Ground was atrocious, almost as bad as our anthem-singing and I think we've got the best anthem normally. But I would.

Jam covered everything I wanted to say about the first two games, although I would point out that Jones the backrow had a terrible patch in his past and add that JJD is notably off-form.
The French, well, I think it's the Top14. They hammer the players hard, they make them play in the week before the tourney and the break weeks and they're actively hostile towards the national teams. That's not conducive to a cohesive, well-drilled and rested team.

Ireland vs England: rain, rain, go away, come again another day. England the marginally less poor side, with Farrell's boot being the major difference. I did find it funny to hear the BBC commentators bringing up Carter and Wilkinson when talking about him.
The backrow and Cole did some sterling breakdown work which is probably closer to the actual reason. Holding off the Irish spoiling tactics is no mean feat in those conditions. Haskell can feel hard done by, I think, for his yellow, not that it made much difference. Irish backline were poor, Heaslip was terrible and ROG should have made the game his own but didn't. It all came down to an arm-wrestle between the packs, as expected, and England just did enough. Pretty fractious game, all told, with both sides willing to grab hold of jerseys and stare threateningly, something Deadeyes Ryan loves to do. Kearney gave a decent showing of himself, actually, although I don't think there was a lot more he could have done to influence the result.

Oh, and if Healy doesn't get a decent length of time out of the game then it will be business as usual. Some clear punches at the breakdown and a pretty vicious stamp on the ankle in clear daylight should put him out for most of the rest of the 6N, no? I can't remember the usual sanction but 4-5 weeks is where I would peg that conduct.

I was impressed by O'Brien skinning Ashton twice on the outside, but not a great deal else. Ah, wet weather rugby in a stadium England are used to losing in, maybe that's what we should have expected. Tournament is starting to look quite interesting now.
Our U20s are looking for a slam now, which is a good omen.

No fullback.

I pick the WORST matches to try and get into rugby. That was the definition of dire.

It was an entire weekend of bad rugby.

Dear Lord but it was, although to be fair the Scots put on a good show.

Ospreys game was quite good with Ryan Bevington living the front row dream by sprinting one in from forty yards out. Mind-blowing.



Sorry, Frank I empathise and I hope the next round is a bit better. I would try and dig up a decent match for you to watch but I'm shorn of all creativity.

A genuinely horrible tackle.



He's obviously been cited.

Man. Someone taught that kid to tackle like that. Cite that person too.

Nah, it's actually pretty instinctive. It's not that long ago (10 years ish) that that sort of tackle was fairly common.

It's pretty ugly and I'm glad it's being stamped out of the game. The kid in question (who's actually Welsh I think!) has been red carded before at U18 level. Screw loose, I suspect.

England U20s have the best card collection, and he is Welsh I believe.
Actually, on that note the English displayed their usual grace and humility with a pitch invasion last weekend. Typical.

Markedly different to the last time a professional's father was on the pitch in France (for those who don't know. Biarritz had some form of handbag incident seemingly every weekend last year).


It's break week for the Six Nations which hasn't stopped a couple of coaches naming their teams, some with good reason. If Phillipe Saint-Andre hadn't named his team this far out the Top14 would have run them ragged. Oh no, back to domestic rugby, what a trial. :P

Oh wait, the Super XV competition starts this weekend with a pair of Aussie derbies. Who's excited? Oh.
I actually quite like the Australian teams (only person who does, probably) and the Brumbies were one of the teams I followed last year. I was actually surprised they didn't break a couple of people into the national set-up. Do we have any Australians lurking around who can update us? How about South Africans?

How's it looking for the NZ conference, Lhowon ? I hear you're leaking wingers.

Only been keeping a vague eye on super rugby, here's a not-very-informative-at-all summary:

The Hurricanes, my home team, have lost Cory Jane to injury. Needless to say that's rubbish news, but Brad Shields will return from injury and Conrad Smith will captain. With Ben Franks, Julian Savea, and Victor Vito as well it's not as if they'll be a shabby side, but success has been elusive in the past.

The Crusaders will want to win the bloody thing again. McCaw is saving himself for the next World Cup, and Guildford is being Guildford, but it's still a team loaded with All Blacks. Israel Dagg, Kieran Read, Dan Carter and Andy Ellis look dangerous, but that hasn't stopped the Crusaders losing when it counts.

The Blues have Kirwan as coach and Graham Henry, no less, as an 'advisor'. To put it delicately they were shit last year, so the expectation is for them to come back revitalised. It seems like a big ask really, I wouldn't bet on them.

The Highlanders have scooped up Nonu and Woodcock from the Titanic that was the Blues 2012 season. With Brad Thorn and Hosea Gear they should be pretty imposing this year.

The Chiefs will be looking to win again, to state the blindingly obvious. They won't have dubious boxing success Sonny Bill Williams or Tongan terror Sona Taumalolo, but otherwise I don't think they've lost much talent. They have Cruden, Sam Cane, Liam Messam. A repeat performance wouldn't be a bad bet. I don't want them to win though, because where the hell is 'Hamilton' anyway?

The good news is that it's hard to call, so should be a pretty entertaining season. My prediction: Hurricanes to win everything. Bet your house.

According to another forum, "Moriarty has been banned for 7 weeks. Mid range, 8 weeks, plus 2 as a detterent minus 3 for mitigation "

Yep. And Cian Healy got away with a 3 week ban for stamping on Dan Cole's ankle.

Fixed that for you. You'll like what he posted on his Twitter feed on Friday, too.

Both actions were potentially career-ending for the victim but I do think the tackle is worse just because of the damage potential. Interesting to see that he got nothing for the swinging arms. That surely aggravated the charges as it spoke of his conduct in the first half? He got off lucky anyway.

Moriarty's seems about right, I would say something like the Davies tackle on Ryan was high-end.

This might be vague memory but didn't the 'Canes score the most tries in the SXV last year? I seem to remember their problem being a leaky defence.
I don't know if the Chiefs will do so well this year, SBW and Taumalolo were big factors in their success last year.

Thanks for the run-down, I picked up the loss of Jane (ACL, poor guy) and a couple of the movements. Is Henry still going to be helping Argentina? Also, do you know if any Argentinians have been looking to move to SXV teams given the change in the SH international structure? I can imagine a few of them would be welcomed.

On the Aussie front I don't think a lot's happening. Pocock has moved to the Brumbies leaving Force looking much weaker and Cooper somehow still has a contract with the Reds off the top of my head.

Yes that's right. Honestly I wasn't following closely enough to give much of an evaluation, I do know they picked up wins against the top teams (coming 3rd in the NZ conference) but went down pretty hard in some games. You're probably right about the Chiefs. I notice Cruden had the leading points/match rate in the competition, as well as being the top points scorer, though Taumalolo was well up there on tries.

As far as I know Henry's stint helping the Argentinians should be ending about now, as it was a year from April 2012. So probably not. Good question about Argentinian players, I really don't know. The move to expand the competition to include Argentina (Japan and the US as well, apparently, though I imagine that's very contingent) should happen in 2016, at which point you'd think local teams in Argentina would want all the local players they can get. Getting practice playing super rugby until then doesn't sound like a bad idea.

I agree about Argentinian players.
Can the US support one or more SXV franchises? bloo ? I know the NFL has made inroads in the UK, oddly, but how much of that is down to ex-pats I can't say. I don't like gridiron so I take no interest and thereby know little. I also wonder if introducing the US and Argentina will cause even more grumbling from players having to travel for tours.
Final rhetorical question: can the proposed expansion regions provide enough high quality players to keep the standard up? As it is the Kiwi conference is much tougher than the other two, and I would be surprised if that sort of expansion didn't lead to dilution.


Anyway, courtesy of the very good Green and Gold rugby, quick rundowns of the Saffa and Aussie conferences.

Hell no.

Last years USA v Italy game in Houston got 17k attendees, and it was the sole international game in the USA.
This year, it's USA v Ireland in Houston again (also the only international game this year), could maybe max the stadium at 22k, but I doubt it.

Major League Soccer in the US had 6 million spectators total last year, averaging almost 19k/game. And soccer is very much more popular than rugby.

An SXV team in San Francisco or New York City would be the best chances, based on the number of clubs (especially D1 clubs) in those areas. I don't think you'd average more than 5k a game with cheap ticket prices. Say tickets were $10 and average concessions were $5, that'd be about $75k/game. Someone would have to make a huge investment in advertising and promotion, and even then, only die-hard rugby watchers here have even heard of the SXV much less the cities and teams involved. The only cities most Americans (including a lot of rugby players) are likely to recognize the names of are Sydney, Melbourne and maybe Johannesburg.

We don't have the fan base to support our own Super League with actual well-known cities and rivalries: Dallas, Boston, New York, etc. And I don't think many of those teams, if any, even charged for admission (Dallas played in a city park).

Goff's idea is a much more plausible path to professional rugby in the US and still requires someone to spend $20+ million.

And you still have a major lack of quality facilities.

Thanks, that makes sense. It sounds like US Rugby has some growing to do before it looks to go professional, but it'll probably happen sooner or later. If nothing else, we'll see more and more Americans doing as the Argentinians and the current US pro players do and moving to Europe to play.

Or maybe it'll stay amateur? That's no bad thing either.

Where: Rome
When: 1430 GMT, Saturday 23rd February

What: the continuation of the Six Nations, that's what! After a, well, a start to the Super Rugby and a bunch of games I have to catch up on, we're back into the internationals.

No change for Wales. At all. Except on the bench where Alyn Wyn-Jones is back and will play as an impact sub, and the Sam 'Giraffe' Warburton on the bench. Interesting, the latter- Ryan Jones had a brilliant match against France and can't really be dropped and Tipuric was probably more useful than Warburton. Expect to see him play regardless.

How's it looking for Wales? Better. Ish. Sort of. It's easy to take too much from the result in Paris. We won ugly, which we have huge trouble doing traditionally. We won when we were written off. We broke our string of losses. Great. Fantastic. Some shaky confidence for a team sorely lacking in it.
But it's shaky, and we still looked like a bunch of teenagers learning the game far too late in life. The Italians are going to target this match in the same way that they targeted the French.

Speaking of the Italians, they've got one major change. Sergio Parisse has been banned for forty days for dissent. On the one hand I have low tolerance for football-like shenanigans, but on the other that's longer than Stampy the elephant got. They bring in Manoa Vosawai to replace him. Burton and Gori take over from the hugely under-performing Orquera and Botes, who gain splinters this week. Geldenhuys is out and Pavanello in and no other real changes.

The weather forecast last I heard was poor. The U20s played in what was a mudbath, on a pitch with standing water all around. I expect it'll be pretty brutal. It won't take much to rattle the Welsh and the Italians will be smarting after the drubbing in Scotland. They're also much, much tougher home than away. They'll target the breakdown and forward game as they did against France, I suspect, as I don't think they want to let the Welsh tugboat backline to ram into their line repeatedly, or let the game open up.

It's hard to call this one from my perspective. Wales by two. At best.

Sorry for this being so rushed, I've had very little time.

Yeah, I've been crazy busy too.

England v France. Short version: England are rightly heavy favourites, but France have picked a *much* better team (Domingo at loosehead, Parra at 9, Trinh-Duc at 10, Fofana at 12) and have had 2 weeks of flak from their public and press. I do not expect them to be terrible again. But they still might be.

Lancaster's picked up the England disease in the backrow - we've selected Lawes at 6 and Wood at 8. Great. Can we have an actual 8 at 8 and a 6 at 6 please? Tuilagi's back but looked unfit and pretty shitty for Leicester last weekend.

Hoooly shit, that was a spectacularly bad day for Irish rugby. Losing to a pretty poor Scottish team, and Munster getting pasted by Treviso does not a happy spectator make. That Scotland-Ireland game made me feel like a teenager watching Irish rugby in the nineties; the occasional bit of excitement, but rarely anything to fucking show for it (this is why I only got back into watching rugby a few years ago, it was just too painful to watch for the longest time). Also Ronan O'Gara did some fucking stellar work in the past, but unfortunately the past is another country and his passports been revoked. Just stop putting him on the pitch, for the last year or two his kicking has been his only saving grace as his ball handling skills went to the shitter, and now he can't even kick properly! At one point he did this dinky little kick into midfield that had the commentators referring to him as "insane". Paddy Jackson didn't have a great kicking game, but he's young and done a decent job at Ulster. He can improve and steady his nerves.

Saving grace of the weekend was a great England-France game.

Way behind on the 6 nations here, but my club finally broke a 5 game losing streak yesterday. 58-12. Woot.

Broke seems about right, congrats!

That kick was, well, it was an attempt at this. That was an absolutely insane move that only fly-halves like Cooper would even think about.Still not entirely certain how Ireland didn't put that game to bed in the first half, but hey, give Scotland more confidence, it's fine. Nothing for Wales to worry about.

There was a great try this weekend by Fofana (a. Ashton, Lawes):



Also amusing: my brother explaining to his girlfriend why England hadn't just scored.


Any SH fans watching: expect to see this man wearing green and gold. I thought he earned a spot last year.

I'm glad someone thought England v France was great. I thought it was pretty poor, Fofana's try aside.

England came to, uh, not play - Farrell was on a mission to wind everyone up and kick the leather off the ball, Youngs' passing was dreadful, the set piece went to pot (admittedly I did expect that in the scrum, but not the lineout), the dreadful selection of Lawes at 6 was shown up in the worst possible way, and we looked sluggish and basically like the team of a year ago. France edged it for the first hour but began to flag; the trouble was their bench players were dire and probably shouldn't have come on. Michalak literally threw the game away, their replacement props were woeful, and France imploded.

England's try was offside so that's a bit of luck, but then so was SA's winning try in the autumn so hey. A semi-fit Tuilagi won his personal battle with Basteraud hands down, Chris Ashton continues to not tackle, and Robshaw was amazing. England's bench was the polar opposite of France's - they came on and made a huge impact.

Gotta play a lot better than that going forward, though.

What a chump.

Not from the sound of things.

Despite handing out a kicking, the Chiefs looked really sloppy for most of that game.

Instead of nicking our players, could other countries please nick our ground staff? The Brisbane pitch for the Reds vs Canes was disgraceful and potentially dangerous. (I'm only half joking, I know the weather has been shite in Australia).

Ahahahaha.

You've seen our pitches, right?

Goddamnit Italy, release your team already.

Previews shortly.