Well, well, well, I really enjoyed the opening round of the 2024 Six Nations. I didn’t see Ireland smashing France like that and it’s always nice when it’s not your team imploding like Scotland did against Wales (although I thought the win was just about deserved in the end). Italy were a lot better and England feel brand new so what does that mean for the second weekend? Take a seat, young ‘uns, and let Uncle Craig’s tell you EXACTLY how it will play out.
Scotland vs France
Will either team be as bad as they were in parts last week? No, I don’t think so. Scotland have won four out of their last five matches against France in Murrayfield and have always been competitive in recent years. Toonie has shuffled the deck and Jamie Ritchie is oot with Rory Darge taking his place (although at 7 with Fagerson at 6). Which is quite significant seeing as he was the former captain, but (apparently) form and fitness have dropped off.
France have changed two: Bielle-Biarrey is now on the wing and Gabrillagues is in the pack to replace Willemse who is on the naughty step. No surprises for me here.
France missed Dupont last week and will miss him this week. Scotland will be looking to build on their win and won’t drop off like they did against a callow Welsh team. However, if France can find their groove it should make for an interesting match. I am going for a narrow win for the Scots given their recent Murrayfield form and a suspected kick up the arse in training this week. Looking forward to it.
24 – 21 to the Scots.
England vs Wales
So, the main event innit. Third best side in the world at home, etc. I think this Welsh team are too inexperienced at the moment. It’s one thing to throw it around against a team who have put nearly 30 points on you and you have a roaring home crowd at your back (especially when the other side commits 16 penalties in a row) but another to do it again in an away game. Don’t get me wrong, both sides are fairly new but I think England will win comfortably.
No changes for England; quite a few for the Welsh. North is back at 13, Mann is an injury replacement at 6, Tomos Williams at 9, Lloyd at 10 and Gareth Thomas, Dee and Assiratti make for a completely changed starting front row.
As I said, both teams are rebuilding but England look more settled (given the number of changes) and are at home. So I expect a comfortable win but this expectation has come back to bite me before.
27 – 20 to Engerlaaaaaaannnnnddddd!!!!!
Ireland vs Italy
The last game of the weekend will be a ‘Pro-displeasing hammering for Italy. Having dispatched France in Lyon last week Ireland are playing some great rugby at the moment. Skilful forwards, intimidating backs: I can only see this going one way. Italy will be competitive in parts and will score some tries but it won’t be enough.
Both sides have made a few changes. Andy Faz has shuffled the back row and given Doris the captaincy; Casey is at 9 and McCloskey is at 13. Amongst the changes for Italy, they get Capuozzo back, which will sharpen their attacking edge, and Varney and Zuliani will start. It won’t help them though.
Ireland will be physical, ruthless, aggressive and will rule every facet of play. Italy will be everyone’s favourite underdog but will probably get carded at least once. Easy home win for the Green Meanies.
50 – 15 to Ireland.
Cheers!
Unbounded optimism by Craigsman.
Onna telly this weekend
Showing matches that are televised in the UK and Ireland or on popular subscription services. Bold indicates that it’s on a free to view channel. Times are in the UK zone, so adjust as necessary.
Friday 9th February
| Ireland v Italy U20s | 19:15 | iPlayer |
| England v Wales U20s | 19:15 | S4C / iPlayer |
| Scotland v France U20s | 20:00 | iPlayer |
Saturday 10th February
| Scotland v France | 14:15 | BBC1 |
| England v Wales | 16:45 | ITV1 / S4C / RTÉ2 / STV |
Sunday 11th February
| Ireland v Italy | 15:00 | ITV1 / STV |
Ovally Balls 
3 minutes in, 2 tries to Glasgow.
Sounds great, but remember what happened the last time a Scottish side played a Welsh side…
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BB, Glasgow haven’t scored for half an hour but they look like they are just a pass off scoring every time they have the ball
Drags are poor
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What a Drag it is getting old….
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Our middle one has lots of links to the Drag scene, my favourite name of one of the Queens is Shiela Blige
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Funnily enough, have just been discussing the evil Queen Medb of Connacht who ruthlessly stole an Ulster bull.
This explains the regional rivalry.
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28-0 ahead now. Always a dangerous score…
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FFS, I wish WP would decide whether they’ll allow html or not. Anyway, I’ve edited my previous to use their stupid tools.
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My favourite part of that link is this, the full description of Medb: Medb is described as a fair haired wolf queen, whose form was so beautiful that it robbed men of two-thirds of their valor upon seeing her.
And I think the commentators on this match have been reading this notablog, because they’ve just described Duncan Weir as ‘Bog Brush’, my nickname for Owen Farrell.
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Well, I was sort of hoping that the Dragons would somehow win that to boost our position, but can’t say I had any real expectation of that.
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Glasgow win 40 – 7.
Stafford McDowall was excellent, again, he’s played every URC minute this season for Glasgow
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Coo-Face’s pass for the 5th try was lovely
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TRY Ulster, at long last! Not a great match.
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6-7 at HT.
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TRY Stewart!
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Ospreys with an intercept try.
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Ospreys win it as the clock goes red with a drop goal.
What a shit display that was by both sides.
But wait! It seems the clock was not red after all, and there’ll be a restart.
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Now it’s over.
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stole an Ulster bull
Táin Bó Cúailnge - or Cattle Raid of Cooley.
I’m always surprised it’s not been made into a film or a series** – got most of the great elements of an epic – sex, money, treachery, bravery, heartbreak…
Medb (Mave) and her husband Aillil are in bed and she implies she’s richer than him – so he’s a kept man. They do the sums she’s forgotten Aillil owns a prime white bull. Annoyed she sends her henchmen off to Cooley to a deal for the “Donn” (Cooley is modern day Louth and now in Leinster (provincial boundaries not set in stone).
It’s all goes well – and a deal is agreed, so they have a few jars to celebrate and the Connacht men let slip that they’d have stolen the bull if an deal hadn’t been forthcoming. Deal off – but good to their word the Connachtmen steal the bull and head home.
The owner appeals to king of Ulster (Conchobhar) – but the warriors of Ulster are struck down by a curse which has them afflicted with “labour pains” – so the Ulster hero Cú Chulainn holds them off single handled (Cú Chulainn could be compared to Achilles in Greek mythology)
** Horslips made an LP based on the tale – “The Táin” – I recommend it (and contains the showstopper Dearg Doom – which has an opening riff everyone in this country recognises because the 1990 World cup song borrowed it)
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“What a shit display that was by both sides.”
Didn’t watch it and won’t be watching it, but given that it’s probably about the fifth vaguely meaningful game any of the regions have won that isn’t against each other in the last three years I’m going to say it was somewhere towards the top end of the O’s level!
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Just watched the Squidge video on Scotland-France. Thought it was both pretty boring and a load of bollocks.
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Load of bollocks kills blog stone dead shock!
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@BB – To be honest ‘pretty boring and a load of bollocks’ would have been my analysis of the second half of the match in question. Seven is significantly fewer words than Squidge used though.
I’m struggling for enthusiasm for the Six Nations this year as the tournament feels like a foregone conclusion, the quality isn’t good and my team are at a low point even if it’s been a surprise that they haven’t been particularly worse than any of the others bar Ireland. There may of course be some twists to come, there have been before in similar circumstances, just no sign of anything interesting yet.
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Clyde – I think the main excitement this year surrounds Scotland and the Infinite Number of Ways They Can Bollox Things Up. At least our Ireland game will be a straightforward humping.
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I don’t know, I was disappointed with Scotland’s efforts to bollocks things up in Cardiff. I can’t say they didn’t try, but they definitely came up short.
And you never know this could be your year to beat the Irish – they’ve got to have a bad game sooner or later. You still wouldn’t win the Championship of course because the ref couldn’t see that ball on the line against the French…
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Or rather the fact that the TMO saw the ball on the ground and then backtracked for whatever reason.
Personally I think there should only be one question from a ref to a TMO – Try or no try.
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BB – my first reaction was to disagree with that, because there are all sorts of things that can and do need to be checked (forward passes, fouls, etc.), but if you rephrase it as saying there is no such thing as an on-field decision, then I think I agree.
I think it more often goes the other way, where there is no camera angle showing a clear grounding, but you can see that the ball *must* have been grounded. If the ref has said that the on-field decision is ‘no try’, then that’s that: no try, even though everyone knows there was one.
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Also, imo, the TMO often doesn’t go back far enough when deciding if it’s a try. How many times is there a clear forward pass or knock-on maybe a minute or two before the actual try, that teams get away with?
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Thaum – you do know that not every try against Ireland has a forward pass in the build-up?
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Oops, sorry BB.I liked that comment because I read it as not every try Ireland scores has a forward pass in the build up, just most, and offsides and leading runners blocking the defence as well. My bad.
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Rubbish. Most of them are scored off mauls or pick-and-goes.
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How many times is there a clear forward pass or knock-on maybe a minute or two before the actual try
I believe the directive/advice is 2 phases – now how long is a phase is something of “how long is a piece of string”
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Do you want to know how bad Ulster were this past weekend?
Here’s the evidence.
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Wales with a mann at 6 and a refill at 7? No stardust, but with the state of Welsh rugby, its because it just costelow. I know, that was dyer. If there were a pun competition, I’d never winnett.
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@Deebee – Highly unusual for Wales to provide you with such rich pickings (and we can all see why). Only one Williams, one Thomas, one Jenkins. A Lewis on the bench.
Davies, Jones, Evans, Hughes, Morgan etc nowhere to be seen when you need them. I fear the worst.
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For the last twenty years or so a rule of thumb is that Wales only put in any sort of a decent shift against Ireland if we’re serious about winning the Championship. So a quick look at the table should be a good guide.
Oh well.
I imagine our main tactic will be to waste time. At least we should get off to a flyer by showing up in the first place.
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https://twitter.com/interesting_aIl/status/1760096768509771928?s=20
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sigh…
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What did I do wrong, Refit?
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You may have posted it as a link – or rather WP decided to format it as a link. I just posted it as a line of text and it auto-formatted as an embed.
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Ireland Team & Replacements (v Wales, Guinness Men’s SIx Nations, Aviva Stadium, Saturday, February 24, 2:15pm)
15. Ciaran Frawley (UCD/Leinster)(2)
14. Calvin Nash (Young Munster/Munster)(3)
13. Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster)(69)
12. Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht)(53)
11. James Lowe (Leinster)(28)
10. Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution/Munster)(11)
9. Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster)(32)
1. Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster)(61)
2. Dan Sheehan (Lansdowne/Leinster)(23)
3. Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster)(73)
4. Joe McCarthy (Dublin University/Leinster)(7)
5. Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne/Munster)(47)
6. Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster)(captain)(102)
7. Josh van der Flier (UCD/Leinster)(59)
8. Caelan Doris (St Mary’s College/Leinster)(38)
Replacements:
16. Ronan Kelleher (Lansdowne/Leinster)(28)
17. Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)(126)
18. Oli Jager (Munster)*
19. James Ryan (UCD/Leinster)(61)
20. Ryan Baird (Dublin University/Leinster)(17)
21. Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster)(43)
22. Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster)(113)
23. Stuart McCloskey (Bangor/Ulster)(16).
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Interesting split – better hope none of the back three get injured!
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Looks fun, Borthwick doing some sensible things. Would a kinda liked Ben Spencer to start, but hey. Hope Furbank does well, Steward really needs to work on his defensive positioning against running attacks.
England Furbank; Freeman, Slade, Lawrence, Daly; Ford, Care; Genge, George, Cole, Itoje, Chessum, Roots, Underhill, Earl. Replacements Marler, Stuart, Dan, Martin, Cunningham-South, Spencer, Smith, Feyi-Waboso
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I’m perplexed by Furbank’s inclusion.
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Furplexed.
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Thaum, you’ve got mail.
(Just realised my k.o. times may be continental times.)
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Merci comme toujours, Flair! Is it Thursday already? Blimey!
I shall check the times.
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If you go and see Dune 2, maybe skip the tie-in popcorn bucket
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Orificial merchandise?
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