Could anything be more exciting than last week’s matches?
Read on to find out.
Wales vs Scotland
Scotland, all day, easy peasy, we lost to the eventual winners innit.
Ahem. Ok, victory for Scotland for the first time in Cardiff for a while (but they did win in Llanelli) against a team who has had their number for a while now. Wales have too many injuries and lost 90% of their caps in Alun Wyn-Jones. They also don’t have Josh Navidi, Taulupe Faletau or Justin Tipuric so I can’t see them win the battle up front. Scotland on the other hand have only lost Jamie Ritchie (big loss, mind) and will feel confident after their recent win against … err … can’t remember. In fact, looking at the line-ups, it’s only n° 6 where Wales have a significantly better player.
Wales won by a single point last year and have regressed since. Their defence has become pretty bollocks after Shaun left and they lack the experience at international level (this does not mean they are like England. Repeat, they are NOT like England). Further, they didn’t really set the world alight in the autumn (win against Australia aside). Whereas Scotland have won 6 of their last (arbitrary point in time warning) 7 matches and will be confident going in.
30 – 20 to Scotland.
France vs Ireland
Some people might point out that Ireland don’t have Cateyes and therefore are not going to be as competitive as they could be against France. I, on the other hand, think that this is more than counterbalanced by the number of Ulster players in the team which shows strategic and forward thinking on Faz’s part.
This is probably the game of the weekend. Both sides are in great form having won their opening games and recently beaten the All Blacks (but who hasn’t nowadays? Scotland and Wales actually, but we’ve already discussed that) in convincing style. Ireland play a brand of ‘Pro-pleasing precision rugby and now have a pack which won’t get munched by the opposition whereas France have actually made a team worth the sum of its parts. Both teams are very strong in defence whereas France are a bit better in open play and will score some tries against the run of play. I think Ireland will win the breakdown so these are evenly-matched foes.
I think the key battle will be the set piece with these two teams. If either one can get an edge in the scrum and/or lineout then I expect them to win; probably Ireland. It won’t be by much but it will be down to the old heads such O’Mahoney at the end to see Ireland through.
28 – 22 to Ireland
Italy vs England
England v Italy is always a tough one to preview. Either it induces 50 Shades of meh as England eventually beat them or there’s a surprise around the ruck laws or there is a comedy rage moment where Brian Moore reveals how many toys his ma bought him for his birthday. Recently, England rarely seem to come out of these encounters with glowing match day reports. Either they won well, but didn’t lay down a marker, or they won and it was a poor performance. Or it wasn’t rugby maate.
Apparently Eddie is going with the same team as last week. I think it’s good to have a settled team to build confidence but I’d prefer it if we had some more bosh and experience. Courtney buggering his beautiful noggin is a big loss for us and after last weekend England need Faz’s direction. So I’m thinking that next Monday we’ll have a column from Matt Dawson saying how he would have done something different in hindsight. That’s because he is well clever and if you look at his articles, he doesn’t write many paragraphs, just widely spaced single sentences listing the random thoughts he is having at that moment.
Eddie normally talks about how England will ‘smash’ Italy, but he’s been quiet on that front so far. Which is actually quite nice. I’m expecting a disjointed first half, and then a comfortable gap to open up in the last 20 minutes. I am hoping that we show a bit more attacking shape than last week, and that Marcus Smith finds his feet (watch Squidge’s video about the Calcutta Cup for what I mean by that).
I think Italy will score a couple of nice tries but also shoot themselves in the foot more often than not. They have a young and exciting fly half and Benetton won that cup thing which I think was good, but not sure how seriously the other teams were taking it. Like that development cup in the Prem.
25 – 17 to England.
UPDATE!!!!
Randall starts!!!! And Marchant is in the centre and we have proper wingers and, and, and FFS Eddie, why can’t you do this when we play Scotland?!!!
Hand-wringing by Craigsman
Onna telly this week
Friday 11th February
| Leinster v Edinburgh | 18:00 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Italy U20 v England U20 | 19:00 | BBC iPlayer |
| Leicester v Northampton | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
| Wales U20 v Scotland U20 | 20:00 | BBC iPlayer / S4C |
| Toulouse v Stade Français | 20:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Glasgow v Munster | 20:15 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 12th February
| Lions v Stormers | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Wales v Scotland | 14:15 | BBC1 / S4C |
| Bulls v Sharks | 15:05 | Premier Sports 2 |
| France v Ireland | 16:45 | ITV |
Sunday 13th February
| Saracens v Harlequins | 13:00 | BT Sport 1 | ||
| Italy v England | 15:00 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
We’re so devoid of non-industrial history we actually celebrate the anniversary of Ian Marshall clearing the ball off the line
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We heard numerous stories, the tale of Black Aggie was one (dubious nickname of course)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes,_Countess_of_Dunbar
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OT,
Aren’t you forgetting the story of the House of Ford – the Ancient Giants of Oldham from Days of Yore, who were buried in the depths of Rugby League until Giant Mike could emerge to save his country in its time of suffering under Bad King Brian Ashton, since when the fruit of his loins have fought the good fight on many a field in tandem with the Fearsome Farrells, Warlike Warriors of Wigan, scattering their enemies before them and bringing Glory to the Rose?
If *that’s* not a myth, I don’t know what is.
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@brookter
If Mike Ford is reading this then it might give him a few ideas. The way he’s going with the less succesful members of the Ford clan he needs a narrative to expand their coaching empire.
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This reminds me that I used to go to Sweden at least once a year and some of my earliest memories involve walks with my grandma in the forest. She couldn’t speak much English but, to make sure she engaged with her grand kids, she would randomly gesture wildly at some fungus on a tree or a large bouldering tell my mum this was evidence that the troll King had met with some fairy to kill a giant or something. All translated to us through my mum who struggled to stop laughing.
Might actually read up on some proper stories thinking back to this.
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Wish I could post coherently.
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Watched this to the end and 🤮
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You can’t argue with Destiny, OT.
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Craigs,
Talking of Scandinavian myths and legends and truth…
Have you read Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/22/children-of-ash-and-elm-by-neil-price-review-the-vikings-on-their-own-terms
It’s a brilliant survey of the Vikings, which really goes into their beliefs and customs, rather than just listing the villages and towns they pillaged on their annual tours of Europe. I found it fascinating,
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Grassroots rugby update:
Not quite grassroots as we were at one of the most storied clubs in Ireland on Sunday and played on the back pitch at the Aviva but theys is only kids so I’m having it.
Once again Lansdowne didn’t have quite enough players so the games ended up with an Old Belvedere boy or two turning out for the opposition. 4 games again. My lad volunteered to play for the Lansdowne team his classmate is in and they tried to pass only to one another but some other boys got in the way. They really enjoyed being on the same side, mind. The boy’s ex-international dad was reffing that game and stopped the match after one try to praise the play and to talk both teams through what was so good about it. It was a really decent bit of coaching and the kids immediately put it into practice.
Lansdowne made very narrow and quite short pitches and had a 2-pass rule, which was very good but meant there was a lot of tackling, but not at high speed as there wasn’t the room.
One of the Old Belvedere lads who hadn’t played for some time was back and he seems to be playing a different game to the others. It’s not that he’s brilliant but he runs around in circles when he has the ball, loses his rag when he’s tackled, storms off the pitch if anything goes against him. I said to the ex-international that this fella was a challenge for a ref and he said it was ten of the most difficult minutes of his rugby life, which made me laugh as he’d played in a 60-0 defeat against the All Blacks.
Finally, in the last couple of minutes of the closing game my boy made a try-stopping tackle on a big lad right on the Old Belvedere line and was in a great deal of pain. We walked the 10 minutes home and it was still hurting but we gave him a painkiller and some ice cream and he seemed better. On Monday and Tuesday he was carrying the arm close to his side and yesterday he said that he hadn’t tried too hard at football cos he felt nervous. We decided to take him to hospital for an x-ray (Pro tip: Take a book if you’re going to Crumlin Children’s Hospital cos you’ll be waiting a long time) and the result came in: a broken collarbone. No rugby for 6-8 weeks now. No swimming for 3 or 4.
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Trisk,
Ouch… I was really enjoying the update till the broken collarbone… Hope Trisk Jnr recovers quickly.
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@Tomp
Best wishes to your lad……………………
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@Brookter
The broken collarbone (above) is TomP
My eldest has a broken wrist…. hairline crack in that knobbly bit at the end of the ulna where it joins the hand.
Grassroots update – we got 125K in a grant – won’t build a clubhouse on it’s own but with some fundraising (something we’re not good at) plus a loan – it might. Right now we’ve a portakabin with 2 dressing rooms. Luckily during covid, dressing rooms were out of action but with 4 boys teams (U14x2, U16, U18.5) and 3 girls teams plus the seniors and with potential for a men’s 2nd XV – it’s just insufficient. We’re looking at 4-6 dressing rooms – I’m in support of building the minimum possible – I’ve been in plenty of GAA clubhouses that were overspecc’d with underused rooms….
As Raymond Chandler said approaching the Grayle (?) house – “it was smaller than Buckingham Palace and it probably had fewer windows than the Chrysler Building…”
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Sorry Trisk and Tomp and the injured juniors!
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Brookter – thanks for years recommendation. I’m fairly ignorant of that side of things*. My mum doesn’t really have an interest and I think a lot of the ‘lore’ that my family told died with my grandma. She had a lot of stories. Could have been made up on the spot mind.
Last time we were in Sweden we visited a mock up of a viking village where people actually lived. That was quite cool.
* although I’ve played the latest God of War.
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“a mock up of a viking village”
Imagine such a thing.
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On the other hand, old Nimuë is unlikely to choose a mendacious arrogant entitled incompetent hypocritical wallpaper-fancying let-the-bodies-pile-high national humiliation of a buffoon with carefully dishevelled hair to be the most powerful figure in Albion and it’s associated-for-the-time-being realms.
When did Ed Sheeran become PM?
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This is accurate reporting of the rule:
Ah, it was a try Ireland conceded. Now I understand why someone who understood could have pretended not to understand when it was a try against Italy.
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@Tomp: I’m somewhat missing the context here… What on Earth are you referring to?
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@DAB
I believe there’s some muttering that pass from Ntamack to Dupont for 1st French try vs Ireland was forward …..
Well, maybe but dodged a bullet on the Jaminet “try” – yeah, the was a hand under the ball but when 200+kgs (Sheehan and Jaminet) land on that ball as they roll over the line – you can be sure it deforms and touches the grass
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Dab, it’s my occasional irritation with an “ex” from here who sometimes posts comments on the Guardian website. I remember they were furious about a Scottish try against Italy one year that “went forward so was a forward pass” because the cut of the grass on the pitch and blah, blah, blah.
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trisk, no way is Sheehan 120 kgs.
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@Dab, I believe TomP is going in to bat for the Kiwis over the outrage of the French try in 99 or 07 or 23 that eliminated(s) the ABs from the World Cup since they’ve all buggered off from here.
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Discovered the word Devwahrphobia today. One of my students used to explain away his laziness.
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That’s an odd spelling.
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deebs, I think the future one implies that France will win the Cup as in the knock-out rounds they can only meet NZ in the final next year.
Sounds as if you’re resigned to South Africa, should they escape the Group of Death ©, getting beat in the quarter-final. Disappointing for a fan of the World Champs to give up so lamely.
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It’s that try that relegates the Kiwis to runner up spot in their group and getting slaughtered in the QF. Poor lambs.
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A few of these have been popping up in my YouTube recs recently.
No thanks. I wouldn’t even be able to look at the scenery as I would be a gibbering wreck all the way down.
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BB- they used to have one at Windsor Safari Park but it wasn’t as good.
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Saffas to replace Italy in the 6ns in 2025 apparently.
Be good to have some new whipping boys.
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BTW I don’t want to see Italy thrown out.
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Mixed feelings on this. Whilst the money concerns have pretty much forced SA rugby’s hand on this, none of the matches will be remotely as thrilling for me as playing the All Blacks. As a Bok supporter, that’s the be all and end all of Tests. I’m sure many NH fans feel the same way about the Boks being part of a European competition.
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The 6N is hard enough to win as it is.
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I have no great emotional attachment to Italy being in the 6N as I have enjoyed very few of their games since they joined. I still think it would be totally wrong for them to be forced out though.
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How often do we think the Boks would win the thing? I reckon it would be on the conservative side to say a third of the time. Going back a few years I would have said more.
Ireland have essentially had a good team since it became six teams rather than five. Yet they have only won the thing four times in 22 goes – say that had only been once or twice with the Boks in there, would that suit Irish supporters?
Wales have won 6 out of 17 from 2005 onwards which is pretty good going though rather reliant on making the most of things in the years when we’re any good at all. If our good years coincided with goodish years for the Boks we wouldn’t be winning much and a lot of the joy would be gone.
Scotland haven’t won the thing at all since 99 and are finding it tough to break through even with the good team they’ve had for the last few years.
I guess England and France would still fancy their chances of winning their share in the long run though I don’t imagine either set of supporters have felt so successful that they’re bored with how well they do in the last couple of decades.
It would make it all a lot less fun in my view.
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CMW – on the flip side playing the boks regularly would improve the other teams eventually (although they probably play eachother every other year right now).
My issue is that it makes Italy seem like a lesser party. Ok, they’ve always been last or there abouts but if they can be forced out then they aren’t one of the 6 nations. Merely a team the other 5 let in when it suited them.
Also, who’s to say it couldn’t happen to any other team down the line?
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“playing the boks regularly would improve the other teams eventually”
Never been that convinced by this argument when it’s applied to teams who are much weaker than the opponents who will supposedly improve them. Don’t really see that it applies here anyway – the others are all broadly speaking competitive with the Boks, but will lose to them more often than not. And we all play them fairly regularly (over here at least) as it is, the November games against them would need to be knocked on the head as would the Lions tours to SA.
Sounds like there’s some other dreadful contrived ‘World Nations’ tournament in the offing as well which would only really be of any value if the World Cup was scrapped.
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Cmw – I’m pretty much in line with you. The Italian game would be fucked. Also, as much as the are The Enemy, wouldn’t this fuck the Ozzies, Kiwis and (to a lesser extent) the Argies too?
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First weekend in February and your team is playing away in Johannesburg or wherever so that’s the Grand Slam out of the way for another year, great.
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@Craigs – Hard to see how it can be good for Aus/NZ/Arg. And that has to be a bad thing if it makes the game less viable in those countries. I’m sure NZ would still do OK, but why do we want an ever increasing money/power imbalance to cause more of their best players to come over to Europe?
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Storm Eunice: Rare red weather warning issued for parts of the UK
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Cmw – we should start a Freedom Convey and drive to CVC Towers to protest.
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If the argument is that having the Boks would improve the five other sides, why hasn’t it worked for Italy, at least in terms of results?
It took France a long time to win the old tournament, I don’t like this idea, there was/is always something special about the 5/6 Nations, it should be a European competition, it also makes the tours in November special as they are North v South.
The other World Series top thing is bollocks, marketing over “expansion”, if they want expansion have more European teams play in Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, plus the Americas
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Ticht – exactly: it’s all about a friendly (ahem) local rivalry.
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Ticht – that’s an argument I’ve seen. I don’t subscribe as they play the NH regularly. It would improve the quality of the rugby but not the tournament.
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I’m pretty sure that cat5e cables and j45 connectors were sent us by Dog as a reminder of that whole apple carry on.
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Yeah. Boks out. Wouldn’t be happy about that at all. Whats all this about NZRU selling a share to a private equity firm. DIdn’t the six nations do something similar ? Strange moves afoot, could all end in tears.
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In a case of tradition vs money, money will win. Excuses’ll be made about the inevitabilty etc but money will win. And then a new tradition’ll be invented. Am not happy about it but it’s not up to me.
The NZRU have agreed to sell 5% of their brand to that private equity gang despite a long drawn-out debate about the sanctity of the kit. I remember hearing loads of bullshit from Barcelona about how their shirt would never be sullied by sponsorship because it represented the nation. Then they put Unicef on there but that was because they’re more than a club and didn’t make any money out of it. About 10 years ago they ended up with Qatar Airways and now they’re onto some Japanese version of Amazon. Money wins.
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At the very least the remaining Italy games should be thrown by the opposition for this tournament as a show of solidarity.
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