In the exciting battle for the wooden spoon between Ireland, Wales, Italy and England, coaches have not learninged much from their previous selection errors. To be fair to Italy, they don’t have a huge range of players from which to select, and they have played brilliantly; they could and possibly should have beaten Ireland, so we’ll let Quesada off.
As for Ireland, it seems that Farrell has at least learninged that the Prendergast experiment has woefully failed after watching him splash around in the shallow part of the pitch in the first match, and create his own wadi in the second. While Crowley, like his other possible replacements, is dubious with the kicking tee (and by the way, kicking points is only HALF YOUR FUCKING JOB as a fly-half), he’s clearly much more effective on the pitch.
The inclusion of more Ulster players made a clear difference in the second match with Player of the Match being narrowed down to a choice between McCloskey, Baloucoune, Fischetti and Zuliani: two Ulstermen, and two Italians. So of course Farrell drops Izuchukwu, who also performed well, and Timoney remains on the bench.
As for England, the inclusion of Stewart continues to please ABE supporters, and Genge is always on a hair trigger for a card. Maro is looking less saint-like these days. Boris Johnson’s illegitimate son, the Pillock, provides a figure one loves to hate, sadly also because, like most super-villains, he’s pretty effective.
On to Wales. Well. Their set-pieces are functioning well, and I reckon they can beat Ireland. Also first-week Scotland, but not brilliant second-week Scotland. Probably not Italy either, especially if they keep kicking possession away, although possession is often coughed up anyway.
France obviously don’t need any learnings*.
*Have I mentioned how much I hate this horrendous evisceration of the English language?
Ovally Balls 
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Refit – I like the ‘tidy cardie’ and ‘It looks cosy but it has been designed in a French lab to be faster on the wing than a traditional rugby top’ response!
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Remember there was a guy in the early days on the old blog, I think he was English but lived in Wales and had lost a bollock playing there – I know, but it was a remarkable thing about him
Anyway, I remember him talking about how we, Rugby Union, adopted League-style defences when we went pro because it was the easiest way to become effective as a professional team. He also said that eventually the attack would evolve to become just as effective and that is what we are seeing.
JohnBoy? Something like that was his name
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I’m off to bed, half-disgusted and half-thrilled.
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had lost a bollock playing there
Now, you’ve got me thinking…. I don’t recall he was a regular contributor but dropped in from time to time (none the worse for that)
Absent Friends…and all that!
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And I’m not going to comment on France/England as I can’t really add anything.
and anyway sensible comment on a crazy game like that is pointless.
Absolutely nuts – thankfully I had no dog in this race.
France were the best team for most of this 6N (except maybe 10-15 mins vs Ireland and most of the Scotland game), so…..
congratulations/felicitations, Flair!
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“France were the best team for most of this 6N (except maybe 10-15 mins vs Ireland and most of the Scotland game),”
And 39 randomly assorted minutes of the England game and about half an hour of the Italy game when they traded scrums and lineouts and it went nowhere. Still more than anyone else though!
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Left a comment yesterday that never showed up. Unlike England! Where was THAT England before?
Breathtaking game that France could’ve wrapped before, were it not for Chessun intercept, when they lead 36/27 and Chesssun saved a four vs one. But then England played so well and deserved at least a draw.
Some wonder who gave away the last penalty, there were actually two, for a high tackle (Chessun…) and an offside or not rolling away. There was a little confusion as the French thought there was a third one, closer to the posts, a head contact with Brennan.
Thanks Ramos, but that was too close for my confort.
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Question – why is Shaun Edwards seen as some great defensive guru, when his side have conceded 96 points in 2 games? And (supplementary question) does dropping Fickou, who seemed to be the defensive ‘captain’ have anything to do with it?
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“why is Shaun Edwards seen as some great defensive guru, when his side have conceded 96 points in 2 games?”
Could be his past body of work, would have to check whether that’s been any good.
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Then he should have been able to see what went wrong against Scotland and fixed it before England?
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WRT Shaun. Yes he transformed France defence, at a time France mostly played a counter-attacking system. Fickou was his defence captain. It worked. Airtight defence, lightning quick counter attacks.
Times changed, Fickou got older legs, and the escort under high kicks were banned. Hence chaos in midfield in almost every game. Rub of the green and fortunate bounces made France’s first three games easy. What wasn’t easy were successive injuries to #12 and 13. Galthié can choose between three pairs of centers who are complementary: Moefana and Depoortere with UBB, Gailleton and Brau Boirie ( Pau) and Barassi with Gourgues ( Toulouse). Because of injuries, Shaun could not work with any continuity with these pairs, very young players mostly. I think that explains the gaping holes in the last two games. More on that later.
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What went wrong vs Scotland was not so much a centre problem but a mistake by Galthié. He went for a light and mobile pack that did not contest rucks where Ireland showed it’s possible to dominate Scotland with a heavy pack. Galthié chose not to, and with the great help of hindsight, he was wrong. Let Scotland play with fast ball and they’ll rip you open, especially if Finn’s having a good day.
So not really Shaun’s fault.
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Should he?
They’ve obviously got some things to work on perhaps around their whole approach as much as strictly ‘defence’ and I’m sure they will. Your original (non-supplementary) question did rather lend itself to a facetious response though.
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As for England, I have serious reservations about their renaissance.
They played off the cuff stuff during most of the game because it essentially did not matter. There was nothing at stake in it for them. Had they been contenders, even for 2nd or 3rd place, I’d argue they’d never have played like they did. They played the whole game as a team plays when the ref has called “advantage”. Even if you miss, it’s free ball, you get another chance. When it mattered at the end (sniffing victory) England reverted to its old habits: Kick the ball away, knockon by Pollock, and then not one but three penalties in the last bit of action.
It remains to be seen if they can do it again with something at stake, say Ireland next year in Dublin or SA this summer.
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Another example or two about how pressure make some players better and most of us mortals worse than usual.
We all had to sink 4 feet putts and they usually end up in the cup. The same putt on the 18th hole in a match play is a much harder proposition.
During the last bit of action last night, after the first penalty was awarded, Ramos called Dupont and told him matter of factly : “stop playing, let’s take the points!”
And he was laughing before kicking the penalty.
Sink it, your team wins the 6N. Miss it, your team loses it.
Pressure? Bah….
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France U20s just won the GS, beating England 31/28 in LaR stadium.
It was just as difficult as last night, France quickly leading 21/0 but a very good and resilient England lead 3 minutes before the end 28/26.
Very good game.
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I have serious reservations about their renaissance
As you say, there was nothing except personal “pride” at stake.
I thnk the bigger problem is that after 2 poor performances vs Scotland and Ireland (who both played well), they had a big shake up and the performance vs Italy was hardly any better. Then suddenly, it’s brilliant – reminds me of Ireland teams of old – capable of incredible one -off performances.
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To talk jargon – vs France showed the “ceiling” for England but the previous games showed the “floor”. There was also incoherence in the strategy – kick heavy one day, then “on ball” the next.
Certainly, in Ireland there was concern that England would kick, kick, and kick again – and we didn’t manage well vs France but England kept the ball in hand. They had some initial territorial success (like Scotland on Saturday) but failed to score (and Ford blw 3 kicks to the corner), and then effectively gassed out after 20 mins. I saw a stat somewhere that England had around 40 rucks in first 20 and then about 60 in the remaining 60 (and of course lies, damn lies etc)
As Scotland also found, Ireland are happy to tackle, ruck and reload – it’s not the way to stress them.
No-one expects a team to play exactly the same way every time out – weather, opposition qualities mean you tailor the approach without lurching from one to another.
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Bugger. Dempsey off to Japan at the end of the season. That means we’re losing Dempsey, Huw Jones and Adam Hastings at the end of the season. Hopefully Franco has got folk lined up, although Lancaster may be the obvious replacement for Hastings.
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Dempsey off to Japan
is that him done wrt Scotland or can he juggle ?
And where Huw Jones off to?
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Huw’s off to Toulon and Adam’s going to Montpellier.
Reckon that’s probably him finished for Scotland (though I hope not, he waas arguably our second best player this 6N after Kyle). He’ll be 32 next month, so one last big pay day.
George Turner went to Japan for a season and didn’t get picked again until he came back to play for Quins. Plus, with Dempsey’s Australian background, he may want to be (a wee bit) closer to there for family reasons, perhaps.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c875zzdy2qno
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It’s not for nothing that Ireland are a top three side in the world and have been for a long time now.
France beat them because of their excellent kick chase and the brilliance of individuals like Ramos and LBB.
Scotland beat France because France didn’t really compete at the breakdown and that let our backline play the game they wanted to – we shipped four tries when we ended up with a number 8 in the second row and a number 7 in the centre.
We can’t beat Ireland because of how Ireland play the breakdown, all of our ball was glacial and we had to play a hell of a lot of rugby for each of our three tries. I remember Sam Warburton just after he’d retired say that when he heard the ref shout, “Leave it Seven” he knew his work was done and he’d given his team enough time to reset the defence.
Scotland need to find big gnarly forwards who clear the ruck like they mean it, until then we can have all the pretty backline moves we like, we’re not going to win anything.
On France;
Earlier I saw a clip from Rugby Special in which John Barclay was talking about the stats across all the games. France were first in the following metrics;
Attack average per game – Points, Tries, Meters Made, Line breaks, Defenders Beaten, Offloads, Kicking metres, Penalties conceded, Red Zone Entries, RZ efficiency, RZ success.
Defence average per game – Tackle success, Dominant tackles, Fewest RZ conceded,
Try scoring – Scored 0-20 mins, Scored 60-80 mins, Scored from own half, From Turnovers, From kick returns,, From broken play, On first phase.
Now you could argue that there are no stats there for numbers of turnovers won and also that they lost the game in Edinburgh, but they still came away with the full five try BPs and by far the highest points difference.
France deserved their 6N title.
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“Try scoring – Scored 0-20 mins, Scored 60-80 mins”
They certainly also got a shedload between 39 and 50 minutes against us and England – and I think Ireland too as they subbed half the team against them after that.
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“by far the highest points difference”
Fd always said this was the true indicator…
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Scotland need to find big gnarly forwards who clear the ruck like they mean it
School of thought in Ireland says the same – we’re “good”* at slowing the ruck and having teams blow themselves up (yeah, you get a try or even 3 as both England and Scotland did but effort required leaves you open to the counter punch)
France kept the ball away from rucks (as far as possible) vs Ireland. That worked less well vs Scotland (albeit everything clicked for Scotland until last 10-15 mins)
To go the next step – we need genuine power in the 2nd row. Beirne was good vs England and Scotland – that ruck-heavy/on ball approach is heaven to him, but trucking the ball up is not his thing, nor is the back and forth of a big kicking game. McCarthy is a defensive disruptor but not a great ball carrier or hitting offensive rucks (neither looked much cop vs France / Wales which had a lot of kicking, Ryan similar)
Farrell – RL background – tends to prefer the athletic/jumping lock to the “big lump” but ultimately you can’t do without that power (see how Italy’s scrum domination stopped when Edogbo came on)
Scotland need to find the equivalent of Edogbo. Ireland need to find a way to use him….
I say good you may think illegal 😄
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Happy St Patrick’s Day to our Irish contingent! I may have a little sip of Mrs Deebee’s Pogues whiskey later.
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Trisk, another difference I noticed between our games against France and Ireland was the quality of our kicking. France were the best over the tournament in the kick chase but we were very accurate against them. In Dublin JGP was so much better than White. This is usually a strength on White’s but on Saturday his kicks were in that no-man’s land of too far to compete and not far enough to turn the receiver and gain territory. It was easy enough for Ireland to just say, “thanks for the ball” and launch their next attack.
Ireland were able to make the landing spot from their kicks very messy and the new laws of access shift the advantage to the chaser, they can get to a good length kick and bat it back to a supporting player.
I don’t recall who got POTM but Gibson Park was very good.
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So back to the drudgery of the URC, PREM! and Top14. How will we cope?
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You’ll be fine this weekend, Deebee, the Lions will be feasting on a poor Edinburgh side.
I expect us to shift at least 40.
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A plea to our Irish poster. I’ve got a meeting next week with a lady called Caoilfhionn and I have no idea how to pronounce it! Somewhere between Cate and California or Cauliflower? It’s probably Zoe, isn’t it?
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I expect us to shift at least 40.
Easy, Ticht, we’re not France! I doubt we’ll score more that 38 or 39.
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I don’t speak Irish – Trisk’s yer man! But I’d think it’s something like Kilfin.
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Ticht – pretty sure you’re remembering Baldy who nearly lost a bollock playing rugby in Wales.
Waves at everyone
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Test
https://x.com/EdinburghRugby/status/2034535659944255642?s=20
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okay, I’ll something else
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Ahh good. That is where Edinburgh are training. It’s a flipping high school, apparently. St John’s College. The facilities are outstanding
Craigs – Howdy, long time no see. I think you are right with “Baldy”. Wasn’t there a Johnboy or Johnnyboy too?
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Hey Ticht! I can’t remember johnboy I’m afraid. Maybe before my time.
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St John’s College
Was our sister school when I was a student. Boy’s only, but still our sister school.
The school buildings at St John’s were designed by Sir Herbert Baker, who was also the architect for the Union Buildings in Pretoria (main government buildings). Stunning architecture. Still our sister school though.
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They’d probably train somewhere else, ahem, but St John’s is about 10 minutes from Ellis Park, so easy access. You do have to run the gauntlet of derelict and hijacked buildings, drug dealers, gangs, pimps and prostitutes to get there*, but close enough.
*I’m not sure they’re all St John’s old boys, but nobody’s ever denied it, so there we are.
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Well, I might have added Baloucoune, but it’s a pretty good side!
Six Nations Team of the Year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c62k8zme3g4o
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That’s a helluva side! And I don’t think England can feel hard done by, either. I’d probably have had Pierre Schoeman and Duhan van der Merwe in, but some may question my impartiality.
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I’ve just seen this terrific interview with Ian Smith, he was the first fullback to score a try for Scotland (in beating South Africa 6 – 3 in 1969).
The amazing part of that is that he was the 13th fullback to score a try in 98 years of international rugby – it just shows how much the game has changed.
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Deebs, Big Duhi has been carrying an injury for around 18 months, he’s well off his best, unfortunately for both Scotland and Edinburgh.
Schoeman has been the second best loosehead at Edinburgh for a couple of years but he had a good tournament and it looks like he is getting back to his best, at last.
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@deebee
Caoilfhionn is “kayl-in” or maybe ‘kuh-wayl-in’
C is hard
fh – is silent (the ‘h’ replaced a dot over the letter in the 1940s(?) spelling reform) – Irish goes big for lenition and eclipsis
all the vowels are short – think Spanish, Italian
Pronunciations can vary with the dialect (Munster vs Connacht vs Ulster)
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pretty sure you’re remembering Baldy
Yes! That’s him.
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I’ve just seen this terrific interview with Ian Smith, he was the first fullback to score a try for Scotland (in beating South Africa 6 – 3 in 1969)
I remember that game – just.
Amazing stat about fullbacks
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Cardiff with the early intercept try to go 7-0 up at Loftus, but the Bulls strike back with a lineout and maul try to level it up. Cardiff down an man too.
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Cardiff with a penafrom the restart in the Bulls 22 and opt for posts – and miss! As I type, not sure how, but Pollard hoofs it to the 22 of the ‘Diff and a Bulls lineout. Get a penalty from a tackle and rumble over for a second maul try. 12-7 after Pollard hits the post.
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