Rob’s 6 Nations Round Up — Weekend One
Shall we dance?
One. Well, that was hardly a classic weekend of rugby was it? Compelling certainly, and filled with drama (though of the tragicomic nature in Paris) but very low on all round skill. Conditions weren’t the greatest but they weren’t excuse level either. The panache and verve of the world cup felt a long time ago. Ireland and Wales got the closest in a pulsating first half, but with the benefit of reduced blood pressure and hindsight, the second was a damp squib. France Italy was a borderline farce and Scotland vs England was utterly atrocious. Let’s hope for a tad more expanse in the coming weeks.
Two. France. It was nice to feel vindicated. They got the win, but they look God awful. Narrowly escaping losing to Italy at home is the level they have now sunk to. If they defend as loosely as that against the other nations, they will concede a lot of tries.
Three. Italy. Arbiters of their own destiny. They played some pretty decent stuff and we’ll deserved their lead. But when they got in front again they seemed to revert about five years into the past. Ambition evaporated, defence was moved around far too easily with reactive plays instead of keeping their structure. And we all love Parisse, and I know he’s used to doing everything himself but that drop goal attempt was ludicrous, and for an Italian fan it must have been pretty galling — there was so much time and space, it was really unnecessary and a big chance goes missing for Italy.
Four. The 22 line. What is it about this magic line that so stupifies attacking play? I get that you want to ramp up the pressure, but Scotland Ireland and Wales all immediately seemed to revert to one out rumbles with flat passes at zero pace. It is exceptionally easy to defend, and due to the slow nature of play allows the tackler to get the ball carrier into a position to be jackaled.
I could understand it as a technique to draw in defenders then to use the space, but no one seemed to. At one point Tommy O’Donnell just jumped into the existing ruck in a desperate attempt to score. Indeed it often works against the attackers as defenders can set nice and narrow and transfer the pressure onto the attackers — which contributed to the high error count. Scotland were particularly guilty of fumbling and putting the pressure right back on themselves again.
Five. The new England looks an awful lot like a very old England. If there was a watchword for the weekend, narrow was it, and England exemplified it. They displayed an unnerving commitment to running the high ball back, but in the straightest line possible into the nearest melee of Scottish forwards. The Jack Nowell try was well worked; good blocking run, nearly rehearsed passes, but that was it for innovation.
A fair caveat; the game was a slog and Farrell missed two straightforward chances at goal, which might have enabled England to open their shoulders a bit, but otherwise England’s game plan seemed to be pretty boshtastic.
I noted their backrow before the game, and it was of concern here. Vunipola had a cracking game, a deserved MOTM. But his partners were pretty underwhelming. Robshaw was his usual grafting self, but is that the heights of what England should be aiming for against, with due respect, a limited Scotland team? More puzzling was his removal around the 70 minute mark with a narrow lead. That’s peak Robshaw territory there surely! Haskell is not an openside flanker. Three occasions I clocked him in the middle of the ruck, stood up, facing England’s side where he can have no influence on proceedings. The game often seemed to just be passing him by. Or maybe he was posing. Hard to know with The Hask.
Six. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, again Owen Farrell lets England down with an act of petulant indiscipline. I’ve already recounted many times his history on this, and really disappointing to have to be talking about it again. He was exceptionally lucky that Scotland lacked the cutting edge to exploit his foolishness. It made so little sense in the context of the game either. England were closing the game out, and it was only going for a Scottish line out in a position where they’d have to riskily run it or exit which would end with England possession anyway. We all expect a little nudge in that scenario but to so ostentatiously push a player right in front of the touch judge defies belief. I was explaining my incredulity to a fellow in the pub, it’s not that it was worse than a punch, it was how stupid it was a struggled with. One day he is going to cost England in a very severe way.
Seven. On group of people who can come out of that borefest with some credit is the Scottish back row triumvirate. They came to slow, to scrap and to steal and they were mostly successful. England were often left for messy ball which meant they struggled to move their attack quickly enough (and more often than not went straight anyway).
There’s been a lot said about Scotland and their attacking prowess following the game. The figure that they haven’t score a try in this fixture since 2004 is pretty galling for Scotland fans, but not for want of trying here. Indeed, Scotland made 8 line breaks to England’s three. But the tackle figures tell their own story. England’s locks and backrows had much larger tackle counts than their counterparts because as mentioned above when in the 22, Scotland reverted to slow, ponderous carries that sapped all momentum. The big challenge for Scotland will be converting their line breaks to scoreboard pressure. I would say they could do with dropping the ball less, but Ireland were also big fans of that this weekend.
Eight. Ireland vs Wales was a game of both attack and defence; excellence in the latter and admirable endeavour but little impact in the former. It was a tight, tough test match, and it’s not too surprising that the two tries came from moments of quick thinking rather than structured attacking play. Murray’s show and go elicited a cry of “Oh you cheeky bugger!” from my wife, and you have to take your hat off to Faletau for his try; both for the vision to see the ball had gone loose away from the direction of the drive, and for great strength and technique to turn through two hefty tackles that I thought had done enough to stop him getting through. Faletau had I thought a very impressive game; his footwork going into contact is exceptional and allows him to get over the gainline every time. One R1 + full rotation of the left analog stick pirouette on the touchline the shining example.
However in attack, both teams had pretty key failings that let them down over and over. For Ireland, it was holding onto the ball, an issue that has plagued Ireland teams for the better part of a decade now. This was exacerbated by an unusual willingness to play the ball, but at poorly chosen times that led to Ireland perhaps playing too much rugby causing handling errors. Several times and Irish runner tight to the touchline attempted an offload with Welsh players surrounding when simply recycling the ball would have been a simpler, but more effective option. Seriously lads, even the All Blacks take the ball up every now and then! No one will think less of you if you just bosh it into the nearest red shirt once in awhile.
I did feel however at the start that Wales did not look at the races, and were lucky to find themselves only 13 points down. I was full of wailing and gnashing of teeth pre game, but Ireland came out of the blocks like a rocket — Schmidt does like to target key moment around kick offs. This was built however on a simple carry and recycle game, with strong running, quick ball from Murray and the excellent ball presentation which Schmidt places a high emphasis on (Leinster players remarked in interviews in Schmidt’s time there that he would prefer a 2 yard carry with the clean presentation to a 20 yard gain ending in messy ball) of which CJ Stander was front and centre. I had my doubt on him pre game, but he had a barnstorming game at 6, looking to the manor born. However when Ireland moved away from that, they struggled to really cause Wales problems being brutally honest.
Wales were a lot like England (that’ll put the cat amongst the Welsh readers!). They had an innate desire to constantly straighten up and seek contact. Ireland for many years now have employed a fan defence, creating a dog leg out wide that allows the defenders to drift and cover as the ball shifts wider. The failing with that defence is if you can suck defenders in the middle and manufacture the ball out wide quick enough they will struggle to get the numbers wide to cover. Often the outside man is left counting on a covering player inside to make the hit lest they get caught tween a rock and a place of similar firmness.
Throughout the game, the drift looked in serious trouble, but Wales had little interest in moving it wide to exploit it, and would straighten cutting back straight into traffic. Truth be told, Wales didn’t test the Irish line a great deal; my big cause of celebration was that a smaller Irish team coped with Wales’ physicality very adeptly, and with a referee other than Garces who abdicated all responsibility of making decisions at the breakdown, might have made many more turnovers than they did. It was pretty surprising with the relative backrows there were so few turnovers effected. On the one hand, Garces was exceptionally generous to the tackled player giving immense leeway for them holding on, and both teams’ rucking and counter rucking was to a very high standard. A naughty point for Rory Best though — if the referee tells you to release the ball, you should, regardless of your own opinion on the legality of your actions!
It is probably the most telling output of the game that for two attacking players — Jamie Roberts and Andrew Trimble — the key contributions I have to comment on are on their defence. Roberts made 20 tackles, and Trimble made 2 which were both vital and brilliant technique wise too. Les Kiss the former Irish defence coach is now in charge at Ulster so it’s no surprise his provincial charges have become expert practitioners of the choke tackle.
Nine. Nowhere was the battle between the teams in Dublin more focused than the contest between the two midfields, which while one for the purists, was fascinating in its own right. It wasn’t just the volume of tackles that Dr Roberts made, but how dominant they were, often stopping Irish momentum stone dead. Yes, he was shooting out of the defensive line a fair amount, but he just about got away with it. Ireland tried everything with him; Henshaw ran straight at him setting up some earth shattering collisions, and Payne tried cutting lines, offloads, the works. The door was firmly shut.
However in ITV’s determination to have a narrative (which then hilariously came into conflict with RTE picking CJ Stander as man of the match, obviously having had their own narrative about how great a debut he was having), I felt they missed what a fine game Jonathan Davies was having at 13. Sure, he wasn’t making the heavy digging hits (in fact for me, I was frustrated we weren’t able to make more of Roberts’ eagerness in defence as Davies can be a bit of a lost puppy in defence when he loses his organiser inside him), but his polished kicking game was a useful tool for Wales to relieve pressure and create some of their own (Tipuric very close to getting on the end of one of them), and also that I thought the best parts of Roberts’ game was that he was offering himself as a decoy runner a lot, and taking on a big distributive role when Biggar was suffering and when Priestland was getting to the pitch of the match.
From an Ireland point of view, it was great to see Jared Payne back in action. He really varies our backline play and while I would’ve preferred to see him at fullback (poor Simon Zebo who is in wretched form on the wing had an absolute stinker), he organises the defence so well from outside centre. I noticed he would make a tackle (15 on the day, I love a tackle stat) but wouldn’t compete for the ball, instead sprinting back into the line again.
Ten. Some random bits that didn’t fit anywhere else:
That feeling when Biggar is the kicker in your fantasy team, he misses a kick and is subbed off in the first 15 minutes
I know rugby clubs are much more progressive places these days, but how in the name of all that is holy has someone not cut Jack Nowell’s hair off in his sleep?
Jerome Garces is the human shrug emoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “is oot”
Wonderful to hear Gordon D’Arcy’s dulcet Wexford tones on the air. I’ve loved his columns in the Irish Times (well worth checking out) and he brought a real convivial air to proceedings whilst adding some real insight
Great weekend for Irish people at rugby in suits — Michael D Higgins looking like a B.O.S.S in an all tweed affair, and you really must check out Ronan O’Gara’s sparkling pinstripe effort from RTE
Far more one sided stuff in the Women’s 6 Nations. Ireland, England and France all handed out proper pastings, with the latter two nilling Scotland and Italy respectively
