Rob’s 6 Nations Round Up Weekend 2
A miserable Monday. The Victoria line collapsed, the Piccadilly line at Kings Cross was so busy they’d shut the fire doors, and someone burnt toast in the office so I spent 20 minutes standing in the cold. Likelihood of a stroppy blog = HIGH.
One. Sorry Scotland vs England, all is forgiven. France Ireland was one of the worst games of rugby I have seen at any level (and I occasionally play in Surrey Merit leagues where you can still compete with 11 players and used to have a London Irish season ticket). Utterly atrocious. I know it was raining but dear god. A knock on every 5.3 minutes in a game fittingly decided by a scrum that took 10 minutes, which I watched in a pub so cold my Guinness glass was sticking to my lips. What a Saturday! The edge taken off France’s deciding try by the other Ireland fan in the pub shouting “THEY TRICKED US!” in an accusatory tone, as if France were blood bound to trying to win the penalty try from the scrum. A diabolical spectacle even for the true and the brave like me.
Two. Ireland. About 4 minutes into the game I turned to my wife and said “We’re going to rue these missed chances”. So it transpired. I’ve a list of gripes with the game which I’ll detail elsewhere, but facts are you are unlikely to win a test match scoring 9 points and especially if you enter your opposition’s 22 seven times in the first half and only come away with those 9 points. 0 line breaks and 17 missed tackles tell the same tale.
Similar traits were there as in the Wales game; pissballing around with unnecessary offloads in tight spaces that were not on. At one point Jamie Heaslip won a very skillful clean turnover, only for a handling error to give France the ball straight back. The Irish line out also creaked badly, leaving us unable to exert an advantage from the shocking kicking from Plisson in the first period.
Both Italy and Ireland struggled with their strength in depth this weekend, the latter due to the existing injuries, and the toll taken by France’s “aggressive” defence. France and England were able to send Eddy Ben Arous and Joe Marler on at the 50 minute mark to turn the tide; Ireland could only muster Leinster’s third choice to replace Connacht’s second. Ireland visibly tired quite severely in the final quarter, exacerbated by Sexton’s poor game with the boot. The French back three struggled badly when Ireland got the ball in behind them, but Sexton was well out of sorts kicking wise, and it meant Ireland ended up in the second half camped in their own danger zone.
Sean O’Brien’s injury also meant that Ireland lost their biggest source of go forward ball. Irish players are statistically smaller than other rugby playing nations (no Leprechaun jokes please) so we often lack big ball carrying ballast. Despite good performances from McGrath, I suspect we’ll see Healy come in against England. O’’Brien’s injury record is increasingly troubling. Ireland should be thinking about what to do without him longer term.
Three. France. God they are poor, making the result all the sorer. Losing to the worst team in the worst game put me in a great mood. Thankfully I had a trip the length of the Metropolitan line to my parents’ home to help me chill out afterwards. In the first half they seemed to have no answer to Ireland’s extremely limited gameplan other than endless cheap shots and rushing up at the first receiver. Though I will give them credit for leaving the big prop Atonio at the back of the line out to prevent our break off strike move, it was 62 minutes before they got into Ireland’s 22. Even then, their approach was simply to try and grind Ireland. Sure, it was effective, but the bright new dawn of running rugby this was not. And the crowd celebrated like they’d won the World Cup! I was just happy the misery of watching that shite was over. 2 from 2, but there is no way they will be in the title mix — both England and Wales and probably even Scotland should mince them.
Four. Peyper. As I’ve detailed, he wasn’t the reason Ireland lost (as I detailed at the World Cup, referees rarely are), but his decisions certainly left a bad taste in this fan’s metaphorical mouth. He pinged Ireland for offside 3 times (including a bizarre incident at a line out), yet failed to spot Lauret (too few people called Wenceslas playing test rugby these days) enter a ruck through Ireland’s gate and permitted the turnover to be allowed. Rugby is a hard game make no mistake, but the referee really should be providing protection for players such as Sexton being targeted by off the ball incidents; especially galling given France’s myopic whining after the O’Brien incident in the World Cup. Finally, failing to spot the intentional knock on would should have warranted a penalty to win the game and a yellow card, though pitiful that it was basically Ireland’s only attacking chance of points in the second half. I also felt he was letting Ben Arous get away with scrummaging illegally, but I’m not going to go out of my way to defend a front row with Nathan White in it.
Five. Wales’ decision to play a bit wider lasting, oh, all of 20 minutes before deciding to bosh their way up the middle again. I know Warrenball probably doesn’t sit too well with the Welsh psyche and communal memory of Barry John et al, but when your backs are massive, and (in the 6 Nations at least) it gets results why deny your true identity? Scotland pushed Wales mighty hard, and they showed great resilience to ride it, and get themselves back into the game, no matter if it was pretty boshtastic.
However, one worry for Wales may be the backrow. Faletau continues to impress but the flanks remain a challenge for Gatland. Lydiate is probably the first choice player I’d have with me in the trenches, but at the level Wales are looking to operate at he’s a very defensive and regressive selection; the man posses 0 ball carrying traction. But conversely Tipuric requires the best 7 in the northern hemisphere to move to 6 and Tipuric has yet to find his feet at full blooded test level, often feeling quite peripheral to the action.
Six. Jamie Roberts. A man summed up in a single try. Wonderfully clever line to come back in on the inside of the defensive set up, executed by running bloody hard through a load of blokes. As I stressed last week, yes Roberts is a brute of man, but he has a terrific rugby brain on him. If he could kick he’d be the perfect modern 12.
Seven. Big fan of George North responding to a BBC interviewer questioning him about his lengthy spell without a try simply with “miaow”. While it was nice to see him scoring tries again as we’re seeing concussion rob us of the ability of too many players, what were Scotland doing? No winger at test level so be able to run on such a curved, lateral run and make it through an entire back row. Shoddy no matter who has the ball in hand.
Eight. That bring us nicely to Scotland. You feel they are in a holding pattern at the moment. In their last three tests they have gotten into decent positions to win, but you feel they are still reliant on their opposition having a bad enough day to let Scotland win, rather than getting themselves over the line. They matched Wales for line breaks and even finished a couple for tries this time. But a fumble from John Hardie helped set us the move that led to Roberts’ try, and once again inside the 22 their play was static and slow. Laidlaw used more of his running ability from the base this time, but Scotland are still struggling to convert once they’re in behind teams. I imagine they’ll be looking to target a depleted Ireland for that elusive win, but really if they can get a bit of tempo in their play they could take France to the cleaners. You feel like they just need that one, non Italy win to click.
Nine. I was surprised by the effusive reaction from the ITV commentary and pundits to England’s win in Rome. I personally have seen that game about 15 times; Italy competitive until a mistake, they tire, cue floodgates. England were pretty staid for a lot of the game, yet I heard the commentator praise Haskell for being “destructive” — against Italy your 7 should be setting the play, not closing the opposition down!
Now while the mistake obviously took the wind for Italy’s decent sails, full credit to Eddie Jones. He had an immensely strong bench, and it deployed it early and decisively to swing the momentum of the game remarkably in England’s favour. Italy had had to use their replacements too early due to injuries and it was a top piece of game management from the Australian, notably with Danny Care raising the tempo significantly, putting Italy under a lot of pressure. This compounded the fact that Italy’s 2 ideas — Campagnaro (who had a top game) running very fast into the England line and quick no look passes in midfield — had run out of steam. I would fancy England to put a compelling score against Ireland in a fortnight’s time.
Overall my main feeling was that this will not be a classic year for the tournament. The games bteween England, Wales and France strike me as being high on collision, low on inventiveness.
Ten. Maro Itoje is a big lad isn’t he? I’d run round in vests in February too if I looked like that. Though I was tickled by Sir Clive’s response of whether he was a back row or lock “I’d just play him anywhere!”. That’s the precision planning that won a World Cup guys.
