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 
My two favourite 6N anthems! Finally got to the hotel, fours later for a 20km trip! Novotel not showing rugby, so watching on my laptop.
An interesting (or not) snippet from here is that in Lubumbashi, the Novotel has one or two ‘Anglophone’ sports channels so you can get a bit of cricket and rugby, albeit not much. In Kolwezi, the key mining city and full of rowdy Saffers (is there any other type, etc etc) the hotel I was in, full of mining types, have the full suite of rugby and cricket channels. Here in Kin, it’s very French in terms of channels. Mostly football, with a Winter Olympics one chucked in.
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Thats a red.
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I bet it isn’t, SBT.
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Carre carries it over the line!
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Fuck
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Thaum wins.
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Lucky. The ball carrier doesn’t drop, altho he is tackled.
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Better.
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Adams in! Wales also playing much better than expected!
As the mister wisely says, ‘It’s because they’re not kicking the fucking ball away.’
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Blokes in red look like Wales :)
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20 minutes of not being the worst team in the tournament? I’ll take it.
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Wales’s chief need at the moment is finding a better 9.
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It’s weird having Squeaky back. We have a drinking game where you have to take a sip whenever he says ‘isolated’.
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I’m often for taking the points, but think they should have gone for a scrum or tap there.
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Told you I was worried about this game.
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That’s thirty minutes of not being the worst etc.
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Not a bad kick from LRZ, wonder if they could have gone for it there though.
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Terrible kick from Tomos Williams.
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Have you got a hot-key for that phrase Thaum?
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Stop doing this stupid fucking dancing about at the lineout!
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Where was this Scotland last week?
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Line-dancing is a horrible thing.
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Well! Another surprising half so far. Love it!
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Forty.
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I’m with Jiffy in that Scotland won’t be as wasteful in the second half. So not confident of a win at all, fully expecting to lose to be honest. Whatever happens this has been a huge lift though.
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In other excellent sporting news, it’s Higgins (Scottish) v Allen (Norn Irish) in the snooker final.
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I’m a bit premature – Allen still has to win a match today against the current world champion.
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This is great fun, and much more balanced than I expected. After watching about 60 years of the 6N, why am I surprised to be surprised?
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Flair – it’s why we love the 6N!
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Got away with one there. Fifty.
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………I really don’t love it this evening (but I agree generally)
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See, if this was England, we’d have knocked on 10+ phases ago.
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Fair enough – Scotland kept the ball a long time without making a mistake and eventually were going over.
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Costelow being injured is bad news for Wales. He’s had a very good game.
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Whoops!
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Oh Wales.
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I didn’t want us to kick the goal…
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Getting very tense!
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Not a good ten minutes for us. But… sixty.
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Clyde – yeah, I thought you should have gone for the try too.
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I feel we’ve reached the point where we haven’t been the worst team over the two games whatever happens.
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Clyde: the big question is, who is the worst team?
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I think there’s only one answer to that at the moment Thaum.
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First one not a Croc roll, second one was.
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Refit – until today, Ireland would have been a strong contender.
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what does ‘team’ mean in the light of today’s performances?
– most cohesive
– making best of raw materials available
– all for one etc
– greater than sum of it’s parts
– proud representatives
etc etc
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Sort of…
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Win or lose, the thing I love about the Welsh is that they have rugby in their DNA
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Anyway, Exeter 2nds beat Bath 2nds
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Slade – actually, they have A, C, T and G in their DNA like everyone else. ;-)
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