So Far So Good For England
England wouldn't have expected a 15-9 win against Scotland to send them top of the Six Nations Championship after the first round of fixtures, but here we are. A weekend which saw England grind out a hard fought victory against a Scotland side who simply didn't have the quality to outmatch them, Wales and Ireland fought to a literal stalemate and France very nearly lost at home to Italy. And probably deserved to.
Yes, it was a weekend in which any of the games could have been decided by a single converted try, which made for very exciting, if not always high quality rugby. The climax of Ireland vs Wales in particular was a hard fought, attritional, tense contest between two sides of almost equal strength. One way of looking at this weekend is to say that there are three tiers of side in this Six Nations, and we saw how evenly matched they were. Wales and Ireland in the top echelon, so equal that even the scoreboard couldn't separate them, then behind them: England and Scotland, separated only by a little bit of quality and cutting edge from the men in white and then further down the pack, France and Italy, separated by what was probably a poor decision in France's favour.
Another way of looking at it, from the English perspective, is this. France were every bit as awful as I predicted (I thought Italy might give them a game but wow did Italy give them a game); Wales and Ireland, the latter in particular, missed a golden opportunity to take an early advantage; whilst England won their match and Calcutta Cup in hand, know that they have Wales and Ireland both coming to Twickenham, a fixture that neither the men in red nor the men in green will be relishing.
Of course all of this is a matter of perspective. Let's start with France v Italy, a game that ended up being much closer than really it had any right to be. France are a side who have the potential to beat anyone in this Six Nations, but really, they aren't going to. They're horribly out of form, their defence is terrible and they lack composure. They were very, very lucky to escape with a win from this game and they really aren't going to pose a serious threat to any of the top teams.
As for Italy and Scotland, the question now is how do they bounce back? They'll both be bitterly disappointed now to have won their respective games, but they both played well and they need to use their momentum to try and attack the rest of their matches. Italy play England in Rome on Valentine's Day and that is another game that England would expect to win comfortably, so the question is whether Italy can upset them. It looks unlikely. And Scotland's next game is in Cardiff, a nigh-on impossible match for them to win in truth. They need to be looking at their home game against France as an opportunity to springboard themselves into 3rd or 4th in the Championship and if they can get anything in Dublin or Cardiff then that is a bonus really. They were predictably uncomposed against England; time and time again we've seen Scotland get themselves into the right positions and fail to kill off moves, fail to score tries and once again it cost them.
England meanwhile, just need to keep the momentum going. Two winnable away games in a row is a good start to their Six Nations. They put in a professional, accomplished performance against the Scots and had the power to see it through: with their bench coming in handy. The English have a very strong front row and that's where their strength lies; they need to play to those strengths throughout the tournament and a comfortable win next weekend against Italy would do just that. This wasn't a performance that saw them stand up and say: we want to win the Six Nations this year, but it was a solid display and they did what they needed to do. And two wins on the board before they play Ireland at Twickenham, with hopefully France upsetting one of Ireland and Wales before then (as unlikely as it looks) would see them in a very strong position indeed.
Ireland, you have to feel, will be kicking themselves. They had Wales in the palm of their hand at 13-0 and let them back into the game. To only score one penalty after the 28th minute was a real shame for Ireland, as it was a golden opportunity to stamp their authority on this tournament. Ultimately, they weren't strong enough to capitalize, which is probably reasonable, considering how strong this Wales side is, but won't make the lack of a positive result any less painful for them.
Wales, as mentioned before the match, had a much stronger pack and used their physical advantage to their favour as the game ground on and on. Despite Irish dominance in the opening half hour, the longer the game went on, the more you favoured Wales, although you couldn't argue with a draw. It was Toby Faletau, one of Wales' standout individuals who dragged them back into it.
After this weekend, the Six Nations is even harder to predict than at the start, which seems impossible, and is certainly unexpected, as it looked like the winner of the Wales/Ireland match would probably go on to win the tournament. But neither of them won, which allows England and maybe even France if they can pull themselves together long enough, back into the tournament. From here, it's anyone's guess, but I'd still just about back the Welsh.
The Hard and Fast Section
- United and Chelsea are still average. Shocker.
- Leicester fan turns down £3,200 cash out. Brave.
- Kurt Zouma faces six months out. Ouch.
- Sturridge might start tomorrow night. Oooooh.
- Mercedes think Ferrari will beat them. Interesting.
My post might be super late tomorrow, since I'm on campus from 11 until 11, but I'll try to get it up if not before midnight then certainly just after.
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