I was vaguely interested in rugby as a child; we used to play it in the playground, although we didn’t have a rugby ball (any kind of ball would do), none of us knew the rules, and it resembled a particularly vicious bout of British Bulldogs more than the game we know and love today.
Then, in my twenties, I found myself in Detroit working with a load of Brits and French, and there was a local Irish pub, Dick O’Dow’s, that put on all the Five Nations matches. Of course they started at an unreasonable time in the morning, and of course this did not deter us from assembling to watch them, and downing the Guinness in camaradic rivalry.
It starts like that: you think you’re just getting together with some colleagues for a little fun, then you start watching other Test matches, maybe a few European Cup matches, and before you know it, you’re obsessively watching obscure dead rubbers in the Pro-infinity and desperately starting a rugby blog because the one you’ve become addicted to has suddenly disappeared.
As a footnote, during the last World Cup but one, we went to a pub in Cardiff after one of the matches (possibly that horrible one where Ireland were knocked out by Argentina), and there was a bloke there who we overheard mentioning Detroit.
“Oh,” I said, “I used to live in Detroit. I went to watch all the matches at Dick O’Dow’s.”
Turned out the bloke was the one who’d brought the television rights to Detroit, so responsible for my addiction. Small world.
Right, on to the matches!
Italy v France
Teams
Italy: Jacopo Trulla, Luca Sperandio, Marco Zanon, Juan Ignacio Brex, Montanna Ioane, Paolo Garbisi, Stephen Varney, Cherif Traorè, Luca Bigi (c), Marco Riccioni, Marco Lazzaroni, David Sisi, Sebastian Negri, Johan Meyer, Michele Lamaro
Replacements: Gianmarco Lucchesi, Danilo Fischetti, Giosué Zilocchi, Niccolò Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Maxime Mbandà, Guglielmo Palazzani, Carlo Canna
France: Brice Dulin, Teddy Thomas, Arthur Vincent, Gaël Fickou, Gabin Villière, Matthieu Jalibert, Antoine Dupont, Cyril Baille, Julien Marchand, Mohamed Haouas, Bernard Le Roux, Paul Willemse, Dylan Cretin, Charles Ollivon (c), Grégory Alldritt
Replacements: Pierre Bourgarit, Jean-Baptiste Gros, Dorian Aldegheri, Romain Taofifenua, Anthony Jelonch, Baptiste Serin, Louis Carbonel, Damian Penaud
Blog ‘wisdom’
Anything but finishing first will be considered a failure in France. I doubt there’ll be a Grand Slam, given that France will travel to both England and Ireland, albeit in empty stadia. (Flair99)
France by 13 over Italy – the Italians will have their customary strong start to the 6N before injury and lack of depth give those following bonus point chances. (Deebee7)
That’s about all anyone had to say about this match.
England v Scotland
Teams
England: 15. Elliot Daly, 14. Anthony Watson, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Ollie Lawrence, 11. Jonny May, 10. Owen Farrell (C), 9. Ben Youngs, 1. Ellis Genge, 2. Jamie George, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Jonny Hill, 6. Mark Wilson, 7. Tom Curry, 8. Billy Vunipola.
Replacements: 16. Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17. Beno Obano, 18. Harry Williams, 19. Courtney Lawes, 20. Ben Earl, 21. Dan Robson, 22. George Ford, 23. Max Malins.
Scotland: 15. Stuart Hogg (C), 14. Sean Maitland, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Cameron Redpath, 11. Duhan van der Merwe, 10. Finn Russell, 9. Ali Price, 1. Rory Sutherland, 2. George Turner, 3. Zander Fagerson, 4. Scott Cummings, 5. Jonny Gray, 6. Jamie Ritchie, 7. Hamish Watson, 8. Matt Fagerson.
Replacements: 16. David Cherry, 17. Oli Kebble, 18. WP Nel, 19. Richie Gray, 20. Gary Graham, 21. Scott Steele, 22. Jaco van der Walt, 23. Huw Jones.
BLOG ‘WISDOM’
There was a bit more interest in this match.
Full-strength Scotland at Twikkers confident of catching England cold, anticipating many England players off the pace.
As it turns out, Scotland, as usual, force the game and surrender numerous knock-ons in promising attacking positions.
Ford, Farrell, Slade, Daly kick, kick and kick. May secures two kick-chase TDs (Hogg missing his tackles) and Farrell doesn’t miss a kick – conversion or penalty. Slade intercepts a long, telegraphed Russell flat pass for England’s 3rd try. LC-D barrels over late in the game for the fourth.
Final score 40 – 10 as Ritchie gets the consolation and Genge gives up 3 points and a yellow card for lamping Watson.Dream on……………………………………………………. (SladeIs42)
My dark horse, as often, are Scotland, specially as they start with England. With a bit of wind in their sails, they could go pretty far. But then, that’s what we say every year. (Flair, ibid)
Dayboo for young Redpath, and probably Cherry off the bench
Hope Turner can keep the heid & his darts are a worry. Not convinced yet by Fagerson junior at 8 but hope he steps up a bit. Bigger Gray back is good, he’s been looking back in form.
England by 20. (Chimpie)
” Daly = Hogg in many ways.”
Good lord, Slade. What pills have you been taking ?
Was going to announce Ford to bench before the team came out, Eddie just couldn’t play Ford ahead of Faz after Squidge report. Could this be the day a total Owen meltdown costs England the game? Dunno about chipping in behind Farrell, I think running thru him is a better option, with a nifty little offload down low.
So, the scene is set for George to come on with 20 mins to go, and England 20 points behind, will he secure the comeback win ? Has Owen been practicing spiral bombs ??? Nope, cos Eddie rarely brings on subs until its too late for them to change the game.
Scotland by 10. (SunbeamTim)
England by 12 over Scotland – Scots passion, fury and flingaboutery will keep them close until the 65 minute mark when George Ford comes on to change gears and get the spluttering engine purring. (Deebee7, ibid)
Wales v Ireland
Teams
Wales: 15. Leigh Halfpenny, 14. Louis Rees-Zammit, 13. George North, 12. Johnny Williams, 11. Hallam Amos, 10. Dan Biggar, 9. Tomos Williams, 1. Wyn Jones, 2. Ken Owens, 3. Tomas Francis, 4. Adam Beard, 5. Alun Wyn Jones (capt), 6. Dan Lydiate, 7. Justin Tipuric, 8. Taulupe Faletau.
Replacements: 16. Elliot Dee, 17. Rhodri Jones, 18. Leon Brown, 19. Will Rowlands, 20. Josh Navidi, 21. Gareth Davies, 22. Callum Sheedy, 23. Nick Tompkins.
Ireland: 15. Hugo Keenan, 14. Keith Earls, 13. Garry Ringrose, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. James Lowe, 10. Jonathan Sexton (capt), 9. Conor Murray, 1. Cian Healy, 2. Rob Herring, 3. Andrew Porter, 4. Tadhg Beirne, 5. James Ryan, 6. Peter O’Mahony, 7. Josh van der Flier, 8. CJ Stander.
Replacements: 16. Ronan Kelleher, 17. Dave Kilcoyne, 18. Tadhg Furlong, 19. Iain Henderson, 20. Will Connors, 21. Jamison Gibson Park, 22. Billy Burns, 23. Jordan Larmour.
BLOG ‘WISDOM’
The Irish have been shy on this one. Not surprised, because I honestly don’t have any idea either.
Wales by 2 over Ireland – early season burglary by Wales over a fancied Irish side. (Deebee7, ibid) (boo, hiss)
I had the grizzles with Pivac’s Autumn teams, but this feels a tick better. Amos back (as NostradamIks predicted) is alright, not too bothered one way or the other. I much prefer Beard to Seb Davies, especially for his Aardman features.
I’m glad those run-outs for Botham and the Other-backrower-who’s-name-I-can’t-remember-but-it-was-hyphenated, are over for now. Don’t know much about the next big thing at centre called Williams since the last big thing at centre called Owen Williams, who turned out to be overrated and over-hyped – except by me of course. I hope to see what the fuss is about on Sunday.
Lydiate coming back is an odd one. I should be horrified, but I’m not, for some reason. I’m more curious to see how it goes than anything.
Positives are mainly a good pair of 9s, the usual suspects in Faletau and Tips, and two Drags to liven things up off the bench.
What I’m expecting is a stodgy attacking display, an improved set-piece, a mix of iffy and whiffy defending, and a right-good rogering at the breakdown.
Ireland’s to lose. (MisterIks)
I think we’d take them in a packed-out stadium. In a empty echoing cavern it’s theirs all day long. (TomPirracas)
My flabber is gasted by the absence of Wainwright. I simply overlooked it. Says to me that Pivac’s pendulum has swung from adventure to stolid, and Lydiate is there to stop the opposition, rather than start a bit of Welsh rugby.
Pivac out! (Iks again)
Some more general thoughts on the tournament:
Both England and Ireland seem rather stale at the moment, with little threat in attack but they can defend. It will be tight.
Wales look mediocre, Italy pffft…
England will probably bully every team but France, so should finish 1st or 2nd.
Wooden spoon beckons for Italy while Ireland and Wales should fight within the soft belly of the tournament. (Flair99, ibid)
Wales’ matches will in all probability be tedious affairs with depressing results. Or depressing affairs with tedious results. With it being the last hurrah for the Six Nations on proper telly and the unlikely occurrence of Test cricket on Channel 4 I expect to spend February watching an inordinate amount of sport from which I will glean no satisfaction whatsoever.
They’ll probably score the odd nice try either before hopelessly capitulating or more likely after the game is done as a contest. (ClydeMillarWynant)
Don’t think we’ve got a hope in hell, really. Haven’t played a Test since lifting the Webb Ellis trophy, half of our players are being denuded of their skills and enthusiasm by playing in England, we’ve got a long injury list and our domestic competitions have been pretty poor fare. (Deebee7, who frankly seems to be confused about which tournament we’re on about.)
Let the games begin! We all have the HOPEFEAR.
Onna telly this week
Friday 5th February
| Dragons v Connact | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Bristol v Sale | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 6th February
| Wasps v Northampton | 13:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Italy v France | 14:15 | ITV |
| Bath v Harlequins | 14:15 | BT Sport Extra |
| Leicester v Worcester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| London Irish v Gloucester | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| England v Scotland | 16:45 | ITV |
Sunday 7th February
| Newcastle v Exeter | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Wales v Ireland | 15:00 | BBC1 / S4C |
Ovally Balls 
@Thaum, no problem…. just testing the old reflexes….
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Thauma, you’re welcome to it. I’ll try and do another one closer to the time when I’ve taken a whole lot of seconds* to think things through rather than just scribbling this drivel here.
* at least three or four. Maybe 3, one for each match.
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@craigs
He usually believes the last thing he’s read so you might find “The Madness of Crowds” by Douglas Murray turns up instead.
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Flair – I doubt we will see Billy Burns again next weekend.
Obviously, you could not be more right about Cooney.
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The despicable Murray is one of those characters whose books are always on display in the English-language sections of Prague bookshops. I’ve been known to hide them or move them somewhere else.
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Cooney at 10. The campaign starts here.
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I know what welcoming present should greet TomP when he moves into his new place in Dublin.
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Cooney at 10 – not a bad idea! He does play FH sometimes after substitutions, and he certainly has the kicking skills.
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Thaum, I think this Irish side is not that far from a terrific side. A powerful pack most teams would fear, a great midfield, a good newcomer at FB. What you still miss are wings but overall the glaring weakness is what made Ireland almost unbeatable, the Sexton -Murray pairing. They’re dead wood now but unfortunately they dictate the style Ireland play. As they can’t play fast, they slow the rest.
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here’s an Irish winger that was brilliant before his hamstrings went snap
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Serious gas!
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OT – tomp will hide it in a bookshop so it can be bought twice.
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We’re living close enough to the Grand Canal for me to throw it a sack and launch it.
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Even the Catholic church never resorted to book drowning.
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in a sack
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OT – I think Tomp is just really scared that he’ll start involuntarily nodding whilst he’s reading it and then suddenly take to the blog to talk about how the West doesn’t need to feel bad about slavery.
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@craigs
Tomp can also find new reasons to be nasty about Owen Jones
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There are books I have put in the recycling rather than risk anyone else buying them.
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Anyway where are these mushrooms I’ve supposedly got access to?
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CMW – you ate them about 2 hours ago.
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OT – also, we now know that tomp has plenty of sacks lying about.
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“Deebs, I’m tempted to just post that as this weekend’s ATL.”
And you can leave those quotation marks off blog ‘wisdom’ n’all!
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“Morning, Slider!”
Karl.
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Pfft. Here’s another lege before absolutely everything went snap.
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@Craigs – About two hours ago I was out yomping in the snow. I’m now about to eat a baked potato, but I don’t think it will have the desired effect.
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A peculiarity, almost expro-esque even, was the comparison between Italy’s lovely but disallowed try for that hard to spot forward pass, and Dulin’s try from the kick ahead when to my eyes he looked marginally in front of the kicker.
The former got the full TMO Monty with angles and angles and more angles to disallow it, while the latter wasn’t checked at all.
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I agree with Flair about Ireland. POM gifted us a get out of jail card which we struggled to take advantage of until Burns put the ribbon on it as an act of compassion.
Barring injuries, red mist moments chronic bad luck they are going to be a right handful for the rest of the tournament.
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I see CMW’s steal-spoiling knack hasn’t deserted him, even in these most troubling of times. Be nuclear hot, oh baked potato.
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About two hours ago I was out yomping in the snow. I’m now about to eat a baked potato, but I don’t think it will have the desired effect.
So I’ll revise my estimation to 3 hours ago.
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I haven’t done anything of the kind for a very long time. And even my long-awaited post-railway-industry bifter went to the wall because of lockdown.
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The downside of living by the coast is we don’t get any proper snow. Head south 10 miles and they’ve lovely buckets of the stuff, but all we get is a light fluffing.
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Thanks to all who posted with a welcome for my return.
Situation update: Have now moved to North Berwick, and am nicely settled here. Kids totally fine with the change of school and we’ve made loads of good friends already.
Has much changed since I was here last here?
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“Thanks to all who posted with a welcome for my return.”
Re-reading that it makes me sound like an arse, but you know what I meant, I hope!
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North Berwick is lovely. FAR nicer than Dunbar….
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Only joking, Ticht.
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@slider
Well there have been some spectacular flounces. Thauma put Expro on the naughty step and he never came back. Chek accused Ticht of being an anti-Semite (Ticht!) and typed the immortal words “shame on you” before flouncing never to return.
On a more serious note Sag appeared to completely disappear after going through a difficult personal time and to my knowledge is yet to re-emerge.
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Blimey, that’s a flounce or two. And as you say, more serious re sag.
Is behemoth the cat still here?
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Don’t forget yos flouncing after bollock-gate
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@chimpie
Of course! That was unexpected.
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@Slider – Cat stepped away for non-blog related issues and never came back.
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There was some, er, bollocks being talked but his huff did seem a bit disproportionate
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“Thauma put Expro on the naughty step and he never came back.”
I think he did try to a couple of times, but comments going into pre-mod etc.
“Cat stepped away for non-blog related issues and never came back.”
Let’s not say never about anyone as the last couple of days are encouraging on this front.
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I see that Iks and Deebee both wanted me burned with a red hot potato so if they never come back it’ll be too soon.
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“all we get is a light fluffing”
Nothing much has changed.
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Let’s not forget forget Chimpie’s disgraceful attempt to murder me.
Or was it Clyde?
Probably more likely to be my avatar.
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@BB – Looks to me as if all you got was a light fluffing.
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Don’t particularly feel lightly fluffed.
Thankfully.
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I’m against being too snide about various people’s exits in their absence to be honest as there isn’t really anyone I wouldn’t be glad to see back. And it does appear to be possible to return. Being as rude for comic purposes about missing people as we would have been when they were here is of course fair game.
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Mmm, BB en croute….
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Quite CMW, would be great to have them all back. Everyone’s allowed a good flounce now and again. Shame some seem permanent
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