It’s the second weekend of the Six Nations, and this is where things get (even more) interesting!
Following on from his (unexpected, even by him) success last week, Predict-A-Bear is back! This time in full Technicolor! And with lots of exclamation marks!!!!
First up is Italy vs Wales. Italy looked decent in places last week despite losing. They’ll be hoping that being back home will give them a boost. Although they haven’t beaten Wales in Rome since 2007, but that was a very different Wales. Wales have Faletau back (again) and yet another centre partnership facing up to one of the best partnerships in the tournament in Brexoncello (sorry, not sorry). Predict-A-Bear is going for:
‘Second game on Saturday is England vs France. The Big One! Le Crunch! Even though it isn’t. Not this weekend. Anyway, England have an abundance of Smiths, plus a Willis (but perhaps not the correct one) and a large number of Saints in the backline. France have added a Jalibert and some guy called Penaud on the wing. England will have a good first half and not so good second half. France will have a good first half and a better second half.
Predict-A-Bear is going for:
And that’s it for this weekend!
What do you mean there’s a game on Sunday!? You mean I’ve got to preview it too?
Bugger.
Here goes then (and this is being AI’d before the teams come out). Scotland HAVE to beat Ireland. We haven’t since 2017. Ireland were (slightly) sub-par in Autumn. They have rather annoyingly got better since then (but they did only play England last week). Scotland have lost our captain (and all-round genius) Sione, plus the very underestimated Scott Cummings for the whole tournament. Toonie’s Tombola came up with Dave Cherry last week, and he actually played well! So expect him to be out of the 23 or something weird. Injuries permitting, the only change I would make is Jordan in for McDowall. Sadly, I think the James Lowe Smirk will be in evidence a lot come Sunday evening. Can’t even do the “heart says one thing, head says the other” result – mainly because P-A-B doesn’t have a heart….
Still, Predict-A-Bear is going for:
Predict-A-Bear’s prognostications transcribed by BorderBoy.
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 7th February
| Italy v Wales (U20s) | 19:15 | S4C, iPlayer |
| England v France (U20s) | 20:00 | iPlayer |
Saturday 8th February
| Stormers v Bulls | 12:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Italy v Wales | 14:15 | ITV1, S4C, STV |
| England v France | 16:45 | STV, ITV1 |
| Scotland v Ireland (U20s) | 19:45 | iPlayer, RTÉ2 |
Sunday 9th February
| Scotland v Ireland | 15:00 | BBC1, iPlayer, RTÉ2 |
Ovally Balls 
Only “mitigation” for Beirne on Dupont is the fact that he was driven forward by Porter.
Expecting a citing – not a good look to have the game’s biggest star injured…
No complaints on either yellow – except to add that McCarthy’s was “brain dead”. Surprised they didn’t take a look at Henshaw as second man in on the Nash tackle – looked like he hit high with the shoulder.
Conceded 34 points in second half…. Penaud try was a giveaway but telling enough that Ramos expected Prendergast to pass and not to carry…
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Lowe was a big miss. And Gibson-Park, who’s so good usually, had a poor game. But then his forwards didn’t (couldn’t?) provide the quick ball he usually gets. Ireland seemed lost once their pods were pushed backwards. Wonder why they didn’t try a little gruber kick here and there or the aerial battle ( kick and chase) France are so poor at. I was told Ireland would take a leaf out of SA 1/4 final vs France but I didn’t see any of it.
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Lovely try again!
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Lovely view of Kinghorn barfing there. Good job I’ve just finished my dinner…
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That was disappointing, let Wales in there. Need to up the tempo again.
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Nice line by Thomas.
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Fuck’s sake Scotland, the game LASTS FOR 80 MINUTES!!!! Also, our replacement front row are useless.
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@Flair
I thought we did try to test France aerially but for the most part kicks were too long or poorly directed….there was a least one grubber by Prendergast that dribbled into touch when it needed to be straighter and closer to the tryline or flatter giving the winger a chance to run onto it ….
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This is ridiculous – what happened to our tackling?
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Who’s ever heard of this ‘no-jumping’ law before? Not me!
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A really wish we’d stop doing all this running about in the lineout. Doesn’t add anything, plus Ashman is rubbish at throwing in.
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What a finish to the match!
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That was for too close for comfort, should never have allowed them back in. Possibly a mistake to take Finn off, and our forward replacements are nowhere near good enough.
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Wales woz robbed.
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@thaum
It’s a fine line but you’re not allowed to jump to avoid a tackle… in play… he’d probably get away with it if trying to score…
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Wales: dead cat bounce or (slowly) turning the corner with a fresh approach?
Scotland: still hamstrung by a genuinely strong pack (and bench).
Ireland: end of an era? Still plenty of great players, but maybe not across the park.
France: fuck me, there’s some scary ability across the park! And on the bench. Probably in the parking lot too.
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England: is the 10 debate the new centres debate? Is there a pack post-Itoje?
Italy: is putting 50 points on England a sign of renewal or part of the England 10 debate?
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Refit, a Welsh lad got a 20 minute red for exactly the same thing last night playing for the U20s. I didn’t see the Dupont injury until later – I joined the game just as France scored their second try.
The inconsistency in how the game is adjudicated is what leads to all sorts of disputes and, yeah, abuse of officials.
I really wish Scotland could push on from being a team which can open up a decent lead to one that can keep it going for 80 minutes.
I honestly don’t mean to be patronising here, well done Wales in that second half.
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“Scotland: still hamstrung by a genuinely strong pack (and bench).”
Yeah the drop off from starters to replacements is huge. To be fair we are missing our most effective locks – Cummings and Williamson. Apparently Franco Smith calls 22 years old Max Williamson “Bakkies”
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@deebee
Ireland: end of an era?
To an extent – I think pathways are still good but this group are running out of road very quickly. 2025 U20s aren’t great but previous groups 2022-2024 were undefeated.
We’ve left very little time to refresh this group. Summer tour then AIs then into 2026 6N…..and RWC a year later.
I think I wrote here a few weeks ago that a lot of this group should be cycled out ASAP
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I’m not advocating a complete clear out but a lot more players should be brought into training squads.
Maybe that’ll happen in the summer but we could end up 3rd in this 6N* (not unbelievable that England could get 10 points from last 2 games)
One fears that pressure to get results will result in Ireland going fully loaded on the tour.
assumes France beat Scotland and Ireland beat Italy
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I’m finding it genuinely hard to reconcile Wales from 4+ weeks ago, at the start of the tournament, with the Wales from the last two games.
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@Refit – The new coaching regime obviously have some idea about how to get things going when we have the ball. To be fair/generous to Gatland you can see why he shied away from some things. Our backline today didn’t make their tackles, were poor in all the aerial stuff and probably lack a ‘leader’ in defence. All totally against what our good teams under Gats were about. We were getting stuffed for most of that game despite more or less having parity up front (I thought Morgan and Dee while he was on were possibly the two outstanding forwards on the pitch though as a pack Scotland were perhaps marginally better). Now to some extent that’s fair enough as Scotland have a fantastic backline who pass the ball as well as anyone and if you can’t dominate them in the forwards (or for some teams physically in the backs) then you’re up against it, parity isn’t enough, so I’m not having a go at our boys. Gats though was always going to look to whether his team could defend before what they could do with the ball. 2025 rugby is more about scoring tries than ever before though as far as I can see and his methods couldn’t live with it.
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Thought the disallowed try near the end is sort of right, but often let go. I reckon I could find a few Shane tries to strike off if we’re going to be pernickety about that sort of thing.
Thought we were very unlucky with the yellow card – it was an obvious one in itself, but there seemed to be a very obvious massive knock-on (several yards) in the build-up to the incident. Think we only conceded seven points while a man down and that from the shooting ourselves in the foot try, but still could have done without it.
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Would like to commend the referee for how he dealt with the supposed eye-gouging incident. There’s no way he’s deliberately eye-gouging with a hand-off like that, it was just a slow-motion thing and one of a number of unnecessary TMO involvements that most games seem to be cursed with at the moment.
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Thought Kinghorn was brilliant and Jordan looks a really good player who I had hardly seen anything of before this tournament. Graham was great as well when he got the ball, which was thankfully perhaps not as much as he might have done.
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it feels managerialist. There’s no creativity
We’ve switched – because Leinster did – to “off ball” rugby – kick long, try to trap the opposition deep, and force errors.
It’s fairly formulaic – couple of carries, ruck, ruck then if nothing obvious happening – kick long, and press the opposition.
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“a little gruber kick”
Gives Flair a ‘Hard Stare’.
For those who know their Paddington…
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I’m watching the Ireland France game because I didn’t see it all this afternoon. I think I’ve just watch the most extraordinary “exit” I’ve ever seen.
Ramos takes the ball to ground in his 22 and flings it in the air. Louis Bielle-Biarrey takes it on his finger tips and kicks backwards to Penaud on the opposite wing who then clears it.
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In further defence of Gats (despite the evidence of the last couple of weeks) I can only think that he thought that Ben Thomas was a good enough rugby player relative to who else we’ve got that he ought to be in the side, but that he wasn’t going to make it as an international 12 because of his defence (and size). So he (wrongly) tried to make him an outside half. We obviously look much better with a proper outside half and Thomas at 12 though Gats might well not have been wrong about the defensive thing, time will tell. And looking to pension off Anscombe in isolation wasn’t as big a deal as is made out as he’s past his best, never got to pre-injury levels and even that wasn’t particularly amazing even though he did obviously have a very good 6N in 2019. Needed to play a ten though and sort out the whole attacking structure which was nowhere – some of the things that were wrong are more understandable than others I think.
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Ticht, Ramos is familiar with this sort of exit. Remember him kicking the ball as a football player to one of his team mates behind his own try line?
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@Ticht – I’m sure ROG tried something similar once that didn’t work out quite as well.
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CMW, I may be in a minority but I’d rather the ref and the TMO review an incident ‘unnecessarily’ (refering to the eye gouging suspicion) and clearing a player of foul play than not reviewing it (for instance the Beirne/Dupont incident) and let the lunatic fringe take over.
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BTW, sorry but you’ll have to explain the Paddington joke to me.
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I’m guessing Bielle Barrey and Penaud may pull this stuff off in training (when bored) – we were pulverised today – but you have to admire the “sang froid” that these lads display under pressure ….
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@Flair – Mr Gruber is Paddington’s best friend, a relatively elderly Austrian gentleman living in London who takes him on a lot of his trips that lead to ‘adventures’ both banal and otherwise. The Eldest had little interest in Paddington himself and used to just point at pictures of Mr Gruber, say ‘Gruber’ in the most endearing way possible and slip off to sleep.
I agree the Dupont injury should have been reviewed. Think the TMO himself could have seen there was nothing in the Thomas thing rather than bringing it up. Most of the unwelcome interventions are reversing knock-ons, put-ins to lineouts etc when there happens to be an injury break. If something goes with the ref’s call the rest of the time then it shouldn’t be interfered with just because there’s an opportunity to do so.
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Damn – can’t get Bielle Biarrey’s name right without looking it up …
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Something that impresses me enormously about Scotland at the moment is how good they are with the inside ball from out wide for try scoring passes – they hit their man time and time again, often with defenders seemingly in the way and finish chances that you often see go begging for a lot of teams.
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Hard Stare
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My vote for Man of the Match at Murrayfield goes to Andrew Cotter who did a lot more for my enjoyment of it than any other Scot. OK, Kinghorn really, but Cotter a close second.
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CMW – that inside ball is a thing Glasgow have been doing for a long time, George Horne has scored lots for them running that exact line. Ben White has scored a couple for Scotland running that support.
I think Townsend really works on it, he must do, it happens a fair amount of times
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@Flair – I feel I should say I enjoy playing silly buggers with misspellings and so on wherever they come from and wasn’t picking on you for the typo in any way. I’m in awe of your English, my best effort at a second language (German) is nowhere in comparison and I certainly have no idea what the French is for ‘grubber kick’ even if I do have a GCSE…. Anything I can pick up and run with I will though!
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again to CMW, I was lamenting the lack of neutrality in co-coms last night. It’s not any one person’s fault but there does seem to have been a move towards a pundit on the mic who has just the one eye.
Mostly the main commentator is fairly neutral and maybe I’d like to ask Flair what the circumstance is in France with this. I’ve heard the English language South African guys and they can be as terrible as us in the URC.
I know I know, but I miss Bill McLaren, Nigel Starmer-Smith and Eddie Butler, they used language as an art form to describe the beautiful thing unfolding in front of them.
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@Ticht – Huw Jones is on the end of a lot of them and seems to have a real feel for where to be. A lot of scrum halves do well with it – Gareth Davies comes to mind for Wales and especially for Scarlets who he had a phenomenal try-scoring record for. I just think Scotland are really taking it to an extreme with some of the difficult ones they’re pulling off over and over again at the moment and the job done by the passers is often as big a deal as the receivers in making it happen.
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@Ticht – If you’re talking about the Scottish commentary on the U20s game then I thought it was very poor. I’ve actually been impressed by the generosity to the opposition and willingness to appreciate when the balance of play has been against the Wales U20s in the BBC Wales commentary on their previous games. Obviously we get terribly one-eyed stuff from BBC Wales sometimes, but they’ve been good just recently with this.
More widely I don’t think that ability with language is prioritised in the way it used to be and we’re much the poorer for it. When we get really interesting technical analysis in its place that’s fine, but probably should be something for half-time or after the game and even then it’s interesting without necessarily being entertainment. Feels to me like we get a lot of cheerleading without any magic just at the moment though Cotter is a shining light.
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CMW, Cotter is a joy to listen to.
I read something yesterday about Mike “Big Sexy” Phillips wanting to do pundit work and I just thought of Alfie hiding his face in his hands in embarrassment at what MP had just said in previous outings.
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McLaren and Butler – I smile (inwardly) I think of their commentaries. And as the years go by Starmer Smith too (even if the younger me wasn’t mad keen)
Commentary here is generally poor – either entirely one sided or completely oblivious to the actual run of the game (eg suggesting around 40 mins that Penaud was ‘gassed’ – not so gassed that he couldn’t run the length of the pitch on 75 mins)
It’s all very well being encouraging about your own team’s efforts but you need to try to inform them of why the game is going the way it is …..
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In my head, I can hear McLaren passing over a mass brawl as “a wee bit of nonsense” – probably never said such a think.
I think we all associate Eddie with “Fof-an-aaaaaaa” – can’t see that Chelsea player of the same name without hearing Butler’s voice.
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Thanks CMW and Ticht for the explanation. I know a joke that needs to be explained is half dead but I still enjoyed it. Who was it, T-Cod (?) who was giving the Stare on the previous blog?
Ticht, the France 2 TV commentators are basically fans, but they do try to be less one eyed than years ago. Dimitri Yachvili is quite good. The great Olivier Magne, who only comments the U20, is quite fair and often praises the opposition. Am afraid you stole the best of them, Benjamin Keyser.
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