What A Difference A Week Makes!

It's taken 2 days to find the strength to write this!

Saturday evening I sat down to watch England play Wales at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in the firm expectation of watching a renewed England side consolidate the march back to the top of world rugby. We were playing a Welsh side that had even lost to Italy! From last week's well constructed win against France, this match should have been a breeze.

Well it would have been if the forwards had bothered to turn up! Last week, they were magnificent, and stopped the French from playing while giving the England backs time to make their moves, but this time? They were all over the place. Hitting mauls and ruck in ones and twos, providing the slowest of balls giving Wales time to prepare their defence. The England back line was under constant pressure, and as a result, mistakes were made that Wales capitalised on. When Mike Catt had to leave the field injured, it left England with the youngest and most inexperienced set of backs we've had for a long time, and would have looked to the forwards to give them some protection and time to play. The problem was, that the forwards seemed to be playing as if they had never met each other before!

It was so depressing!

As a matter of record, France won the 6 Nations Championship by scoring a try in the last seconds of their match against Scotland. That gave them a marginally better points difference to Ireland, who up until that moment, thought they were champions.

Ah well. Next stop the World Cup where no doubt we will probably go out to the American Eagles if we carry on playing the way we are playing at the moment!

England Beat France (Again)

An eerie piece of magic happened yesterday on a rugby pitch in Twickenham, - just south west of London. England won a rugby match!

Moreover, that match was against this year’s potential world cup finalists, France.

It has to be said that although France did turn up in person, they didn’t in spirit. They looked flat-footed, slow to react and very devoid of ideas. Very much like England did against Ireland two weeks ago! They rarely competed in the loose, and when in possesion, tended to go backwards and sideways. They only had a couple of decent mauls and a lot of their rucks were turned over. One telling statistic that explains this is that England managed to create over 100 phases to 33 by France.

In contrast, with 8 changes of personel, and a new captain, England looked a totally different side to the one that surrended to Ireland at Croke Park. Although at times, England looked ragged and made silly mistakes, that was more than made up by spirit, endeavour and sheer guts. Led by 35 year old Mike Catt, by the time the first half whistle came, England were on the front foot, and although down at the interval by 3 points, looked the far happier side.

The second half saw England, basically set up camp in the French half. On the rare occasion when France did manage to cross the half-way line, the move, more often than not, ended in a turnover, and in seconds they were back in their 22, defending their line.

From what I could see, all the England players put in a performance for the first time in this 6-Nations, - though all made mistakes as well, which a more positive side than France, would have exploited and punished. None-the-less, this was a good positive start to England’s long road to recovery.

As for the other games, in a very close match, Ireland edged out Scotland by 19 points to 18 at Murrayfield to win the Triple Crown while Wales lost to Italy, - Italy’s second win in a row! This was the first time that Italy have managed to win back to back matches and marks a real step up for Italian rugby. Wales were very upset at the end as they felt the referee had misled them out of the chance to win the game, but on balance, Wales didn’t deserve to win.

Next weekend sees the last matches in this year's Six Nations. France take on Scotland in Paris - God help the Scots now; Italy play Ireland in Rome, which has now become a tough one for Ireland and England take on Wales in Cardiff. All I'm looking for now is that England step it up a gear or two and aim for a full 80-minute performance.

Super Saturday....

Unless you are English or, for that matter, Scottish or Welsh! The middle Saturday of the 6 Nations has become known as Super Saturday for the fact that three internationals are played on the same day.

First off, for a rugby nut like myself, it is one of the best days of the year. I get to monopolise the TV for practically the entire day. But more importantly, yesterday saw three of the best games I've seen for some time.

First off was Scotland against Italy. With the game being played in Edinburgh at Murrayfield, this game was yet another where one's interest was how big would Scotland's winning margin be. For once, I was ready for the start of the match, and how lucky I was for that. Italy was 21-0 up within 7 minutes - 3 converted tries had put the team which has never won away from home, almost out of sight! All three tries came from Scotland errors the type of which, even schoolboys would never do. Scotland made things even worse for themselves by not kicking penalties as the usual Italian indiscipline crept in to their game. With the amount of kickable penalties awarded, Scotland could have been on level terms by half time, but they preferred, for reasons known only to themselves, to kick for position. What was even more impressive, was that the Italians didn't sit back, but took the game to Scotland and managed a couple more tries, including one for Alessandro Troncon Italy's 34 year-old scrum-half. Although Scotland did attempt a rally in the second half, on the day, they were always going to be second best after such an awful start and in the end, the 37 - 17 scoreline to Italy was a true reflection on the match, and their first away win was quite emphatically, in the bag.

Next up Ireland against England at Croke Park in Dublin.

For anyone who has followed the 'troubles' in Ireland will know that Croke Park has been home to Irish Gaelic Games since 1884, but is more infamously known as the place where the original 'Bloody Sunday' happened. November 21, 1920, a troop of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary Entered the ground and started shooting indiscriminately into the crowd killing 14 during a Dublin-Tipperary gaelic football match. This was in apparent retaliation to the killing of 14 British intelligence officers earlier that day by Micheal Collin's squad. From that day forward, it was decreed that no 'English' game will ever be played at Croke Park, and inparticular, no 'English' team will be welcome onto the ground.

However, Lansdowne Road, the traditional home of Irish rugby, is under development for the next few years, and Irish rugby has been, temporarily moved across to Croke Park. Given all the cultural background to this game, there was a real possibility of 'problems' at the game, and in particular when 'God Save The Queen' was sung and played. What I witnessed brought a tear to my eye, and a pride in my heart that I support a game that has the best and most noble of supporters. Where I expected cat-calls and whistles, barracking and shouting (there were even reports that the Irish would turn their backs when the anthem was played) I was immensely
pleased to see everyone in the ground who were not English, standing respectfully and quite, and at the end, giving the English team a round of applause of welcome. A truly, but characteristically Irish welcome to the English.

Unfortunately, that is where the welcome ended as the Irish team led by the magnificent O'Driscoll at Outside Centre (my old position) cruelly and ruthlessly to England apart. I don't want to go into details at this stage - it hurts too much, but to echo England Coach, Brian Ashton's words, "We were stuffed". Ireland beat England 43 - 13 - their biggest ever winning margin in this or the previous 5 Nations tests. England choked at Croke Park.

Finally, under the floodlights at the Stade de France in Paris, France took on Wales. History indicates that this should have been a good match for Wales, having won their last 4 matches at the ground. Moreover, the French are not too happy to play under floodlights. The game certainly started off well for Wales with 2 tries and conversions, but as the dust started to settle on the first frantic quarter, France started to impose themselves on their visitors and countered with tries and penalties of their own. The second half was a 40 minute demonstration of keeping it tight and controlled, and apart from a couple of occasions, one of which led to a Welsh try, didn't give the Welsh opportunity to put anything together. However, compared with the two previous matches, this game was a much more even affair, though a late score saw France take the honours, 32 -21.

Wales have now lost all 3 games and are languishing in the wooden spoon position. There next match is against Italy, which previous form would indicate a win to Wales, but from what I saw yesterday, all bets are off. Italy have found some belief, but more importantly, a style of rugby that suits them and is now paying off.

Role on to next week!