Well, for yours truly, along with fellow rugby fans such as Antoine Clarke and Brian Micklethwait of this parish, some of our weekend plans have had to be slotted around watching, or trying to watch, the rugby matches in the Six Nations tournament. For the uninitiated, the teams are Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy and France. I watched the games on Saturday – I did not see today’s England-Italy match as I was driving around the Kent coast – but on the strength of yesterday’s matches alone, I am risking the prediction that this tournament could be one of the finest of recent times, or at least one of the most engrossing.
As a person with a bit of Scottish inheritance, I was rooting for the Scots on Saturday, and I thought they had pretty much clinched it until, in the last 10 or so minutes of the game, the Welsh, aided by some Scottish injuries, errors and possibly some lapses of concentration, staged an incredible comeback to win the match. As for the French, they comprehensively beat the Irish in Paris by a margin that makes one wonder how the Irish managed to win the previous tournament, although I imagine that the Irish will play, or try to play, with a bit more composure in the next match. But the French look a class apart from the rest – their pack was awesome.
One small detail pleased me yesterday, in that the Scottish team seems to have reverted to wearing a dark-blue strip that bears some relationship to the colours of the country. As I noticed several years ago, the Scottish recently had a strip that looked very similar to that of the New Zealand one, and very confusing that was.
Anyway, bring on next weekend!
Lucky you Johnathan, the proximity af Beachy Head might have been a bit too tempting. Apart from about three line breaks, it made a knock between the two worst tennis players you’ve ever seen look exciting.
(Except for the last five minutes when it looked like Italy might nick it).
I still can’t decide if the strange rugby-wide fascination with kicking from hands is due to the recent rule changes – I don’t remember it happening anywhere near as often, say, 8 years ago – or because of something more subtle.
That said, Wales-Scotland was one of the best games of rugby I’ve seen in the last few months. Scots were desperately unlucky.
I thoroughly enjoyed both games yesterday but today was a real let down. I suppose that not every game can be exciting but England today were very frustrating to watch. I am not convinced that Fluty and Wilkinson is a good combination. Jonny seemed much more composed last week.
The hangover is just about subsiding now!
I may have mentioned once or twice over the years, that I am Welsh, havent I?
With 10 minutes to go, and 14 to 24 down, my heart was in my boots, a pretty good team had managed to screw it up big time again, just like last week, by making elimentary mistakes that would have got us a right bollocking in my High school team even (I was number 11).
But when the Scottish forward got sin binned for a bloody stupid foul(just as our Wyn-Jones was last week) well we rallied, bloody hell did we rally! We Welsh have a word for it, it’s Hywl!
If someone had written the last ten minutes as fiction it would have been binned as totally implausible. The most thrilling exciting 10 minutes of Rugby I can remember, and I saw Gareth Edwards and JPR Williams live in their hayday.
Let’s face it folks, in the Northern Hemisphere, only Wales and France play rugby like it should be played, a running game full of thrills, flair, fight and imagination.
We should have creamed a very dull and plodding England last week, but gifted them the game. Sorry England fans, but if that was the best you could do against Italy today, well forget grand slams or even the championship. France will murder you, and Ireland can take you easily too.
So predictions? If anyone will get the Grand Slam, it will be France.
If Wales can beat France (that game will be one to tell your grandchildren about folks!) we may even get the Championship. If not, well France certainly.
You non Welsh just have no idea how important Rugby is to us. It is not a sport but a religion.
If there is any booze left in the Principality tonight, it is because someone forgot where they hid it.
I think I will go back to iplayer and run those last 10 minutes again for the 21st time, just to make sure it really happened. Utter fuckin magic!
Men.
France are going to put 50 points on someone this year.
Ideally on England, but on their day they could give anyone a real pasting.
RAB, I don’t fully share your analysis. I thought Wales were pretty poor for an hour and as a mate of mine said in an e-mail exchange ‘we shouldn’t let the result paper over the cracks.’ It wasn’t a good performance.
But I watch internationals to see Wales win, any win will do;I’ll take 3-0. if necessary.So on that basis I was a lot happier at full time than I was at 70 minutes.
BenS, the excuse for the kicking bore fest is the rule changes which are said to give a big advantage to the tackler over the tackled. If a full-back gets caught trying something fancy in his own half then he must release the ball when grounded in the tackle and if his mates are still ambling back to him while the opposition are piling in, then he either gives the ball away or gives a penalty away. Hence the insisence by coaches on ‘playing rugby in the right areas’.
Having said all that, if the Welsh had been a bit more ‘pragmatic’ against the English or the Scots against the Welsh then the results might have been very different. After all, the Italians held England to three points when they were down to fourteen men.
Still the Celts were always a bit over-ambitious, (though Andy Powell getting arrested for being drunk in charge of a stolen golf cart while driving up the M4 motorway is possibly more into Darwin award territory).
Well I may be a teensy bit partisan Kevyn, but I thought I had made myself clear, Wales played utter crap for the first 70 minutes and richly deserved to lose. The frustrating thing for us supporters is that you can see they are a good team, but they keep screwing up with simple errors a school team shouldn’t make, let alone on International side.
Scotland played by far the better rugby for 70 minutes and were coasting it. But the game aint over till its over is it?
To have two players sent off in the last ten, for really dumb fouls, was sheer insanity. So ultimately they threw it away, nobody to blame but themselves.
Oh and another thing. Doesn’t anyone learn the rules anymore? I know Rugby players often arn’t the sharpest of folk, but why the hell didn’t Scotland boot the ball out of play at the final restart? The clock was already past the 80 minute mark, that would have ended it. They would have been disappointed with a draw after having played so well, but at least they wouldn’t have lost. Crazy!
Kevin B, I think we will find the Powell golf buggy incident to be rather exaggerated. He was completely twatted yes, but they wern’t on the M4 but pissing about on the slip road that comes out of the Hotel.
Alisa, you know you cant live without us!
You know you women love the smell of liniment, dryed blood and bandages and TCP in the morning!
Welsh women do anyway. We menfolk have been telling them that it is a special type of Welsh aftershave since they were small girls. 😉
Oh you devil RAB, if I didn’t know any better, after reading that I would be running to the nearest singles’ bar for a fix;-P
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Looks like I’ve killed the thread…
Dont worry Sweetheart, it was only Cricket.
I used to be opening bat for my school, so I was quite good at it, and even I dont know half the rules.
When I was in the County Court we had a thing called the Green Book, this contained pretty much all the rules of English Civil Law. It was about five inches thick.
Wisden, the bible of Cricket, is about eight!
Go figure.
Christ that is embarrassing!
I really should look what thread I’m on before posting.
I thought I was on the American/Afgan cricket one.
I’m afraid self immolation is the only way out now!
Bye all, nice knowing you….
Cricket? What cricket?
I was one of the England – Italy spectators that Sunday, but i must say the game was a bit disappointing. England lacked the spectacle it usually shows in terrain, but overall their game was good. I will definitely get Six Nations tickets for the next season, i had fun being there and hopefully i will get to see better games in the future!