I first remember watching the Five Nations as a teenager, back in the eighties. South Africa had only introduced television in 1976, with the apartheid government, in its Calvinist zeal, deeming it evil. Given the Kardashians and plethora of similar series, they may have had a point. My folks, bless ‘em only got a big, fat, shiny set replete with bunny ears and no remote in 1980, so my dad could watch the British Lions series.
‘White’ South Africa in those days was a shambles of ethno-nationalism, with Afrikaners dominating politically, English-speakers controlling much of the economy, a large Portuguese community that migrated here after Angolan and Mozambican independence, pockets of Italians who’d who stayed here after the Second World War (prisoners from North Africa were transferred here), very strong, if relatively small, Belgian (ex-Zaire), French (built our nuclear capacity and key dams, and gave us fighter jet and missile technology), German, Lebanese, Jewish, Zambian and Zimbabwean ‘whites’ (who still called themselves Rhodesian in the main), and a whole heap of first generation Brits, who came over in the sixties and seventies to work on the power stations, dams, mines, telecoms etc that the apartheid government was building.
The point? Amongst all these groups there was fierce sporting rivalry (and a fair amount of pub violence too), largely in football, which attracted huge whites-only crowds back then, but also spilling over into rugby. What of the rugby? The hair was big, the shorts were, er, not, the players largely looked normal-sized and there were no television match officials. It was glorious chaos. In South Africa, we had only the Currie Cup – a ferocious tournament at the time – and a handful of tours, with isolation starting to bite.
With an English mum and dad of English heritage, I naturally supported England in all matter sporting, so the early eighties were alright. Bill Beaumont led a grizzled pack full of policemen and other thugs magnificently! The Welsh wizardry of the 70s was waning, but still spoken of in hushed tones by our parents, Andy Irvine was my favourite Scot, Ollie Campbell and Tony Ward great Irishmen, but my oh my, it was Jean-Pierre Rives, the one and only J-PR, who stole hearts with his frenetic, fearless and gallant approach to rugby. It was a great time to be exposed to northern rugby. And Bill McLaren. The greatest sports commentator of all time? Certainly best UK one, in my books.
Watching those matches as the eighties meandered into the nineties, Scotland’s final hurrah in 1990 with the Grand Slam and a win over England (who I was backing, whilst my best mate rooted for Scotland) are some of my favourite sporting memories.
Fast forward to 2025, the Six Nations, the razzmatazz, the massive players, the huge squads, tactical subs, endless law changes, endless TMO reviews and endless bickering by fans on social media – it’s just not the same, is it? No. It’s completely different: and just as compelling. The skills on display, the crowds, the anthems (Flower of Scotland for me, just ahead of Land of Our Fathers and La Marseillaise) and the ancient rivalries, along with the addition of Rome and Italy make it a special tournament, to be treasured. Not to be fucked with. No relegation and promotion. No Springboks. Just as is. Progress and change be damned – the tournament is a beacon in a sea of endless repetition and tinkering.
And this year’s tournament promises to be a great one. France and Ireland or vice versa are favourites to win it, although most don’t expect a Slam, while Scotland (assuming they can keep 23 players fit) have a wonderful set of backs who can turn a Test on a tickey. The English media’s schizophrenic lurching between bombast and blubbering belies a side not far off being very, very good – capable, in my books, of beating any of the others on their day. In either hemisphere. Wales are rebuilding and will hope their arrested development turns the joke on someone else, whilst Italy have proven that on their day, they can play some magical stuff and trade it with the best. So as 2025 dawns, may young fans (of all ages) around the globe marvel at the likes of St Maro, Marcus Smith, Rabah Slimani, Julien Marchand, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Antoine Dupont(!), Damian Penaud, Sebastian Negri, Juan Ignacio Brex, Ange Capuzzo, Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier, Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Rory Darge, Jamie Ritchie, Darcy Graham, Finn Russell, Christ Tshiunza, Jac Morgan, Liam and Tomos Williams amongst so many others. Let these names be spoken of in hushed and fond tones as arguments echo down the ages, rivalries remain, growing stronger and closer: let the Six Nations speak on the field. Let’s enjoy one of the great sporting spectacles!
Reminiscences by deebee7, of course.
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 31st January
| Scotland v Italy (U20s) | 19:15 | iPlayer |
| France v Wales | 20:15 | S4C, STV, ITV1 |
Saturday 1st February
| Scotland v Italy | 14:15 | BBC1 |
| Ireland v England | 16:45 | STV, ITV1 |
| France v Wales (U20s) | 20:10 | iPlayer, S4C |
Ovally Balls 
Wales aren’t making much progress ball in hand, but their tactical kicking has been shit. Way too many speculative hoofs with nobody putting the defender under pressure.
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Oh, this is brutal.
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Crickey! Ramos rubbing it in with some sublime conversions!
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France are looking very scary. I’m not sure our defence is actually as good as Wales’, but our attack is better. I hope.
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@Deebee – I’d much rather we kicked sooner and better.
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Excitement-ometer much as before.
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CMW, if they kicks put France under pressure, I’d agree, but they’re largely not – more just trying to relieve pressure, but it’s not working. France have been very, very good though. Passes stick, everyone knows what their role is and they are calm and patient. Working a treat!
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Playing a load of phases and then kicking poorly and indecisively is a lot worse than knowing what you want to do and kicking purposefully in the first place, that’s all I meant.
France have done some lovely things (I liked the second try especially) though they have had most of the little things go in their favour. Of course when your team don’t have the ball much and get pulled up for their minor mistakes it feels like it matters a lot more, but there has been an element of the ref just letting the ‘big team’s’ little errors go which is irritating even though it doesn’t matter a jot in the great scheme of things. I doubt if the same will happen when they’re up against proper opposition so wouldn’t read too much into where France are at from this performance so far. They’re physically superior to Wales and have excellent and decisive half-backs, but we knew that already.
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Some lovely offloads from the boys there.
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Everyone’s playing games.
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France now showing how to defend. Unlikely to be tha same score as Toulouse v Tiggers but very impressive
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Cocky France! Replacing six players at once, including Dupont.
Wales might not get nilled.
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Time to get better scrum half. Who needs Dupont
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@Thaum – More likely to fuck up what they’re doing than change what we are. Will hopefully take 14 points or so off the final score.
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Bit of a 50-50 penalty then got smashed. Ho hum.
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It’s still not going well. :-(
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Looked unfortunate to give away the pen. If it was a close game would be upset with Adams losing it, but doesn’t matter in this situation. Quite a lucky bounce and the constant cross-kicks in modern rugby depress me slightly, maybe spoilt slightly by seeing Dupont’s inch-perfect ones earlier on in any case, but so it goes.
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Hope that stays yellow even though it was definitely a mistake.
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That was bafflingly dumb by Ntamak.
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Rumble!
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I don’t think your can argue with it being upgraded to red.
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Getting a yellow for charging down a kick is a bit much really and totally unnecessary in the circumstances.
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‘Leave it in the tackle’ and it’s about two feet off the ground.
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Think it was a build up of previous offences, the ref had warned Wales a few times, so I think he just lost patience with them.
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Me uncle is of the opinion that we should replace France with Spain in the tournament, so every has a team they’re confident of beating.
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@BB – I know, but that sort of thing is normally for defensive offsides under pressure etc so was pretty uncalled for. Personally I think he’s been shit, but I’m bound to think that as he’s just been doing what refs do when there’s an obviously stronger team and an obviously weaker one. You’ll remember it all too well I’m sure.
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Oof. Nilled. Men against boys tonight.
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I’m terrified of France.
Commiserations, Clyde.
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@Dab – No need to be a prick though.
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Thought Wales actually played quite well, particularly the pack. Promising for the future. France played well without quite hitting top gear. Thought southern hemisphere reffing of the offside line was better adapted to by France, yes they defended well, but their whole backline was perpetually 2 feet offside. Shame about Ntamack, he is one of my favorite players, but it was a red.
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Also think that Adams and Williams(Liam ) have lost a yard and a half of pace, maybe time to replace them? Max Lewellyn deserves a shot, assuming Watkin is fully broken.
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Wales are rebuilding and it’s difficult to say where they are yet.
France didn’t really click. Penaud is a huge miss, he really energises the crowd and the team when he gets on one.
Colombe is poor for a man of his size – the replacement Welsh loosehead looked to have everything Colombe didn’t have – the grit and the technique.
Dupont. The one word is enough.
Ntamack didn’t do much before getting sent off, as clear a red as you’ll see.
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Jegou and Auradou shouldn’t be in the French side at this point in time. If they are cleared then I wish them well, but not yet.
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Wales were poor with ball in hand: knock-ons and stupid kicks to nothing (or worse, Ramos), but I don’t think another team would have punished them that badly.
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Thaum, seven tries or not, I didn’t think France played with much in the way of fluidity, they were well below their potential.
Which is terrifying for the rest of us.
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Ticht – yes, exactly.
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Wales are rebuilding, but the standout problem is we just don’t have enough players who are physically up to the mark. In the pack only really Morgan, Wainwright (who went off early) and the hookers (the starting one got carded) have the necessary oomph and the inside backs are small and don’t hit hard (apart from Watkin who went off early and offers little in attack).
France showed some nice skills, but while agree they didn’t completely get going that’s in the context of having loads of front-foot ball which they won’t get to the same extent against some of the other teams so I wouldn’t be terrified from an Ire/Scot/Eng point of view. Obviously they’ve got all the skills and more gears, but they will need them to beat teams who can match up to them better in the smashing each other up stakes.
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To be clear I don’t really think any of our forwards are terrible players – they could probably almost all do fine if they were surrounded by others who can offer what they can’t.
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Not much to add.
France still rusty will get better.
Amazing stuff: how many penalties did they concede? I may be wrong but I think the first one was around the 50th minute. So one penalty (and a stupid and fully deserved RC ) in a whole game must be a record.
Hope Wales recover soon. Rugby can’t afford one of its best nation sink any lower. Come on boys!
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Clyde, I think you give the pack a disservice. I thought Generally, they held their own, which is impressive against the biggest pack in the northern hemisphere. Maybe in trouble against Ireland, who are cohesive, but Scotland are light, England repeatedly punch below their weight,( lightweight 8 and Super Maro not pushing ???), Italy may be a handfull. The front row, and Jac Morgan and Reifell areas good is it gets over the ball in the British Isles. Lack of sheer pace and guile in the backs, or big even one big bullocking back, (Max) is not anything to be worried about in the short term, Hathaway, Dyer, and the unpicked 10/15 ( Costello?), would all add that. Tomos WIlliams is great, and Thomas looked cool against a team of worldbeaters.
The major difference tonite, I thought, was Dupont, ( forward pass aside ), and execution, the French were on it at the breakdown, and played to the whistle in defense. The Welsh repeatedly gave away daft penalties, some are inevitable under great pressure, but most were Maro and Earl type dumb.
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@SBT – possibly. The forwards certainly put in a shift, the set pieces went pretty well and they all got about the pitch and generally made their tackles (and there were plenty to make). We get so few dominant tackles or carries though (mainly only from Morgan) and are on the receiving end of plenty and end up getting into trouble at the breakdowns in both attack and defence as a result. I don’t think we have the players to bring in who can change that, but hopefully some will come through both up front and in midfield.
We’re not very good at taking advantage of the occasional good carry we get – don’t think it’s necessarily that our 9s and 10s are rubbish though it sometimes ends up looking like they are with some fairly obvious moments of indecision – possibly something to do with whatever our attacking structure is, hard to say, they were up against a very strong defence last night. And yes, too many basic errors still of course.
Bit disappointed in France’s failure to put in the required stinker for us to stay in the game too!
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Well the hope didn’t kill me, so there’s that, but I was still 20 points light in my prediction. Shame for Watkins with a nasty injury but this may lead to the Llewelyn/E James centre combo that many want to see (me).
Ben Thomas is not an international 10, it’s not his fault but he should be 10/12 cover atm with Edwards starting.
The Wainwright injury was almost inevitable as he was rumoured to be carrying a training injury with Faletau already out and Gatland refusing to bring in any other 8’s like Morse or Morris. Given that, our 777 back row worked their socks off and kept the score respectable.
And yes, Liam and Adams both looked a bit slower so Rogers (our most dangerous back?) gets subbed.
So the hope didn’t kill me, it was the baffling selection bollox.
I hope we can give Italy a game.
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“I hope we can give Italy a game.”
Me too….
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Here we go!
‘Mon Scotland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Darge furra lineeee!
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Try!
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If Duhan isn’t in touch or the pass isn’t forward, that’s a great try!
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Great start from Scotland. Did really well with not a lot of space for that second try, wasn’t expecting Duhan to pass.
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Finn been taking passing lessons from JD2?
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Two good kicks from Allan, and Italy back into it.
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