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 
Really don’t think Nige should be ref commentator in Wales games.
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Not quite 80, never mind. A bit of bad luck and a bit of not being used to winning.
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3 words too many there BB.
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@Thaum……eh?
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Well played Wales, so close.
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A bit gutted for Wales. Well done, Scotland.
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Not sure we really deserved that, but unlike some times in the past, we stuck in and got over the line in the end. Well played Wales.
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Slade: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2qs2nb/revision/2
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Bayliss was excellent when he came on, as was Wee Darcy. Might this be then end of Duhan? Didn’t really do much today.
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Well, well played Wales. Thoroughly undeserved by Scotland, and a couple of disgraceful reffing decisions robbed Wales. That Tomos Williams croc roll penalty reversal was just plain wrong. Well played Wales. Shame they looked like they stopped playing and tried to just hang on.
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Thought our boys deserved it really and Scotland didn’t cover themselves in glory though you could see they are the better team. Try from the kick-off killed us though you could also see we’d got tired especially when we had the ball in the second half. That TMO intervention and some decision making on what to do with our penalties hurt us too.
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First things first, CMW, Wales deserved to win that, they wanted it more than us for the vast majority of the game.
We’ve been there and we know how that must feel.
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Great fun. A draw would have been a fairer result. Good to see Wales competitive for a whole game. Scotland are a bit fortunate to get 5 points out of this game, but kudos for their spirit.
For those who complain about the “croc rolls”: it does not have to be around the neck to be a penalty. Any twist of the body, even below the shoulders is deemed ( and is actually) dangerous for the player joints. Not always reffed correctly, I agree.
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It seems Kitson wrote an article a week or two ago saying that the Celtic nations were done, and that Six Nations is now a two-horse race. Ooops!
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An amusing comment from BTL on the mothership:
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Flair, I do understand your point, and if policed harshly, that may cover the George one, but surely not the Tomos Williams one. He didn’t twist the player, only himself, small guy using leverage to clear a bigger guy. He was clamped around the abdomen area , and effectively pushed/propelled the player sideways, no twist involved, and no danger to the head, neck or lower limbs.
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SBT, I remember reading an article by Sam Warburton a few years ago, this was before the croc roll was legislated against and he was advocating that it should be outlawed because of the danger to knee joints in particular in rolling a player sideways. This, he argued, could be career-ending.
The Williams incident had the Scottish player rolling in that sort of motion, over his own knee. The Tuipulotu one a couple of minutes later was for rolling the player from the neck. This was probably worse but both were legitimate penalties under the laws.
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Well, well, well – who’d have thunk?
I think we actually rode our luck early on with Ford kicking 2 dead plus I think he dropped one short to Osborne …. 3 opportunities on the 5m line missed. Plus Genge missing the pass.
But as mentioned above we grew into it, as England struggled (or vice versa)
Great to see Baloucoune tearing it up – no substitute for pace and power. Osborne was good – great line and power for the last try.
McCloskey was super – apparently Schmidt wasn’t a fan of offloading hence he became a non-person. Even now one wonders would he have played if either Henshaw was fit or Aki not suspended?
Timoney was good as well – got plenty of metres in the carry and great chase to catch Smith after Gibson Park’s kick through.
Forwards were good – and we survived the scrums (mainly). Doris, Beirne, and McCarthy were much changed from the Paris match (Doris was OK vs Italy).
I get the feeling that Farrell is a “lucky general” – Keenan was supposed to play wing in 2020 until Stockdale got injured in the warm up.
Would we see Baloucoune/Osborne if Hansen/Keenan were fit? (I can imagine Osborne parked on the wing with Hansen at 15)
And Crowley was pretty good – didn’t get stuck in rucks, and one horrible shank on a pen aside – kicked pretty well. (He should start the next two and then we can decide if he’ll be the #1 going forward without all the chopping and changing/indecision/second guessing I referred to)
(And being #1 doesn’t mean playing 70 of 80 against everybody)
Still think Timoney and Izuchukwu should start vs Wales – we got away with no 2nd row on the bench cause England were garbage at the lineout (until George came on). Prendergast (C) did pretty well there when he came on.
After the no-show in Paris and the struggles of last weekend – we’re in with a chance of the championship (or Triple Crown anyway)
Need to hit these levels vs Wales
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@cwm
Try from the kick-off killed us
Awful lapse of concentration – 23-12 up, you should win from there.
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And congratulations to Scotland – mix of good luck and good thinking in the Graham try but it was only going one way after that.
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In all the tribal hurly-burly of the weekend’s matches, I forgot to thank Thauma for another great ATL!
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Jalibert out for today’s game. Leg injury.
That’s quite disruptive as Ramos has to move to FH, Attisogbé to FB. And Dréan gets his first cap at wing. France won’t be as well oiled in attack.
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That’s a real pity, Flair, as Jalibert and Dupont were clicking nicely. Now that I’ve found TF1, at least I can watch the match properly! Despite the shifting around, I can’t see France losing, even if Italy have played some very good rugby so far. The Grand Slam is France’s to lose!
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Deebs, the game is on FTV2, the public channel, 4pm French time.
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After the first two games, I thought France had played the two weakest teams, Wales and Ireland, and I feared mostly Scotland at Murrayfield (still do) and England in Paris (less so).
But after Italy’s excellent games, and the demolition of England yesterday, I am lost as usual after half the games. Wonderful 6N!
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Beep-Beep!
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Both sides attacking with verve, France finishing with precision. Lovely match so far, would be good – as a neutral – if Italy could get over the line!
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YES!!!!
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Flair, I’ve got it on TV5 Monde. Italy have given France the toughest first 40 this 6N so far. Ag! Buggered up a simple restart – it could have been much closer with a bit more luck and composure. That is a great but of defending by Italy at oranges!
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That was a fun first half.
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Agreed.
I’d far sooner watch and support an Italian team that plays with ambition and heart than the constipated pile of dross served up by England.
Win or lose one can identify with the Italians’ pride and effort.
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OOf, looked like France collapsing there.
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Shit, that’s some defence from Italy!
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Noooo, Capuozzo’s broken.
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I was about to comment that there’s been no foul or cynical play in this match, no cards, no controversy, and then Lynagh has a brain fart. Nonetheless, it’s been a remarkably good match from a discipline and foul play perspective. 26-8 is a bit unfair to Italy, given what they’ve contributed, but France just won’t be denied!
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Statement performance from France! Not just the win, not just the tries, but refusing to concede points when the match was done and dusted. That’s a helluva result. Italy well beaten in the end, but gave France a helluva go all afternoon! Great stuff!
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Well, still in it with ten to go, so not bad. England going to have a job to win another game, I fear. France really need a massive meltdown of old school proportions not to get the slam. They have top class cover in every position, second team probably cruise to it.
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Some intensity!
Italy are no longer a walk over.
France lack fluidity without Jalibert but they still got the BP win, so that’s that.
A minor point, that mars a bit Dréan’s try. Italy was then playing with only 13 players, as for some obscure reason the ref on the side did not let Capuozzo’s sub onto the pitch. Hence the usually quiet Gonzalo Quesada’s wrath.
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Was a bit less enamoured with the France-Italy game than some others. A lot of the second half seemed to be a series of scrums and lineouts with one side winning the scrums and the other the lineouts and the game going nowhere as a result. Thought France played a bit of an arrogant game at times with the ball but made up for it with very strong and committed defence. And they took their opportunistic tries well in the first half. Italy won the scrums and did well to defend in broken play, but won’t win by dominating up front if they lose about half their lineouts. Hope this doesn’t turn out to be the best game France get from anyone on the way to a slam, it has been so far though the bar was very low.
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CMW – I got the impression that France were playing a 2-peed game in the 2nd half – periods of containment and brief spells of high intensity and speed. The interesting thing is that they were all on the same wavelength and switched on and off as a unit.
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Interesting video about some of the decisions at the weekend from an actual (non-Nigel) ref. The Fagerson one could be argued I suppose, but then I’ve seen lots of instances where ‘the backs join in a maul’ and hardly any of them are behind the ball carrier. I’ve also seen complaints about the quick kick off and having to use the same ball. That’s rubbish – the number of times I’ve seen penalties kicked at Scotstoun and the ball sailing over the East or West stand. If we had to wait for the poor ball boy/girl to run around and get them, the games would be finishing at midnight.
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CMW, I thought it was the pick of the weekend’s matches based on the ball in hand ambition of both sides, especially in the first half. Also think if the odd Italian pass had stuck, it would’ve been a single score match going into the last quarter. I also loved the defence on both sides (until Italy went down to 14 and couldn’t defend the gaps), which was absolutely uncompromising. The scrum and lineout woes respectively added a bit of jeopardy as well. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but offered the neutral the whole gamut of what makes rugby great.
Wales-Scotland had plenty of drama, but I don’t think the same quality. It was great to watch, but a notch below. England-Ireland was great to watch if you enjoy watching the Swing Low Brigade getting their gobs shut. And the piss-taking of Kitson’s article writing off the Celtic nations a couple of weeks ago.
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@Deebee – very much a case of how two people can see the same game very differently. I felt France threw a lot of wild passes in the first half and ran down too many blind alleys with players seeming to think they would just beat their opponent one-on-one at will. When they bothered to play some more structured stuff they scored a good try through the second row. Never felt it was close with Italy not getting any nearer than 11 points and of course losing fairly heavily in the end. Probably doesn’t help that I wouldn’t have backed them if they were ahead with any time left let alone two scores down, this probably comes from supporting a lot of underdogs so I know the score, but even putting that bias aside I couldn’t say it was genuinely close and it was pretty scrappy a lot of the time though good defence for the most part as you say.
Obviously I enjoyed England-Ireland. Some good tries and Ireland were very impressive though England’s error count was enormous. The replacement ref didn’t help with the spectacle in the second half as he just finds so many penalties.
Wales-Scotland was objectively the closest by miles (I mean the lead even changed hands!) and while even if there was good stuff from both sides at times I would agree it wasn’t the highest quality, I think only Ireland really showed that across the weekend. I think for once our game would be the one out of the round I would show someone to introduce them to the joys (and despair) of watching rugby.
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McCloskey on That Tackle:
“I probably ran back (chasing Marcus Smith) more in hope than expectation. And as I got closer, it was like, ‘Oh flip, I’m actually going to get him’.
“But yeah, I was absolutely cooked after it. I was basically a body bag for the last five minutes but thankful the game was won.”
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Oddly the lead has only changed hands in two out of the nine games this season. Wish it was only one of course, the other being Ireland-Italy. Don’t think scores have been level at any score other than 0-0 either. I guess part of this is teams not taking kicks at goal these days, but still think it’s unusual especially with four of the teams being sort of evenly matched at least theoretically.
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@Thaum – It was a mighty chase. Aesthetically it was a shame Smith realised he was going to get caught, but still a good spectacle. Have to question whether Smith has the pace for fullback – obviously he has it over a short distance, but this was not a good look. That said they should have brought him on for Ford anyway.
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Clyde – there’s only one team that’s not evenly matched, and that’s France.
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@Thaum – Wales aren’t yet, plenty to prove on that front and I anticipate some more lean years. One swallow, especially one that’s hard to swallow and all that…
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If I thought I was about to get tackled by a McCloskey on the charge, I’d throw myself into touch.
But yes, I was amazed that Stu, who’d been playing very full-on for the whole match, caught a back who’d only recently come on!
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@BB – The funny one on that video is about the ref having to pretend that the Italian front-rower had any real chance of tackling Bielle-Biarrey!
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