Six Nations 2017 (4th February - 18 March)

Dis86 said:
Love the ref looking for an excuse to card Hughes and the TMO telling him no.
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Did seem odd. I don't think late tackles should be judged on slo-mo replay only. I think they need to see the action at normal speed at least once. Other foul play, fair enough, but late tackling is all about timing.
 
Gosh Scotland were poor. That yellow card set the direction of the rest of the match and was an incredibly undisciplined piece of play. That's the thing about Scotland, they let their hatred of the English affect their judgement to the extent that they can't always make the distinction in their mind between a game of rugby and a scene from Braveheart :p.

Ireland England should be great. Ireland will go to extreme lengths to avoid a huge English party from a grand slam and record breaking number of consecutive wins. Could be a fun game.
 
Well done to England on the win. Scotland needed to start strongly and not concede quickly but the early yellow set the tone, the team just didn't show up compared to how well they've played in recent matches while England started brightly and continued throughout as far as I can tell (couldn't watch the second half as I was driving). Trying to take some positives from this there's been too many years when the team hasn't even looked close to scoring three tries at Twickenham - unfortunately England were on inspired form at the same time as a Scotland slump. Still time to pick ourselves up and hopefully do well on the final day, if we can get three wins this year it's definite progress.

Italy vs France was looking fairly close for the first half although France really stepped it up in the second half. On a first look I thought Bronzini was a bit unlucky for his dive over the line to have been judged to be held up as it seemed almost impossible that he couldn't have scored from there and that might have made for a more interesting second half however I didn't see the replays so it might have been perfectly correct.
 
Cracking result for England, they finally showed up to the championship a demonstrated a ruthlessness that had been lacking so far this term. All credit to Eddie Jones and the coaches for working out Scotland's poor 12-13 defence and exploiting it over and over again. No side at tier 1 level should be being torn to pieces off of first phase that many times in a row, it was verging on shambolic and in positions that the injury argument can't be used on as they have been the incumbents for a few games.

It was really pleasing to see the accuracy and speed of the handling skills of the half backs and three-quarters, real Southern Hemisphere quality and when we started to ring the changes after half time, if anything we got better.

As to whether Fraser Brown should have been Red Carded I think if it had occurred at any other time in a game and not in the first 2 minutes it would have been, the important thing is though that for a change England exploited that 10 minutes in a way they have failed to do up to now and that is heartening.

Well done the Red Rose, now roll on to Dublin with a chance to make real History :)
 
Some very good performances this weekend. It was nice to see George North get back in the game he's looked lost on the wing all Championship and once he started getting involved his quality shone through, I can't decide whether this has been a player mentality or coaching issue but at least it seems to have been cracked. Ireland looked sadly wilted and if Rory Best gets on the plane to New Zealand I will be horrified, he is a great all round player but his line out is poor and was on the last Lions tour. The Pro - 12 line out as I think of it is straight just 1 meter toward your own side so your team mates don't have to even move their arms into the channel to catch it. Very popular amongst Scots, Irish and Welsh hookers, how the refs let them get away with it I don't know. Scotland still look dangerous, they got exposed this weekend but Hugh Jones, Tim Visser and Stuart Hogg are still finding holes and Scotlands conversion rate of pressure into points is very impressive. If Wales could mange the same as Scotland on scoring points when they're on offer they would be on an 18 game winning streak.

England well the first good game from them this Championship. They have become so accurate and so good at taking the points when they're on offer I can't actually believe its England. And if anyone thinks there is a better lock than Joe Launchbury in NH rugby they are deluded. Now if we can only get Captain Greedy, sorry Mike Brown to pass.
 
England's Rugby weekend was pretty much perfect

The men give Scotland a shellacking 61-21
The U20s clinch the Six nations title with a game to spare beating Scotland 33-5
The U18s beat Scotland 31-17 in a warm up for the International Series in April
The women thrash Scotland out of sight with a 64-0 drubbing (Kay Wilson scored seven!! tries)
The England Sevens team win the Vancouver leg of the World Sevens series beating the Blitzboks 19-7 in the final.

Things are shiny with the Red Rose right now :D

I imagine the RFU HQ is a very relaxed and happy place this morning ;)


***Edit
Unsurprisingly Fraser Brown has been cited for the tackle on Daly. I suspect it might well add to Scotland's woes as I fully expect him to be given a 2 week "rest" by the disciplinary committee. Hearing is on Tuesday.
 
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Went to the Wales game on Friday night. The atmosphere was electric considering it was Friday, and you could really tell that Wales were out to prove something. Pity we didn't turn the screw and go for goal in the first games instead of kicking to touch.. too late now though.

Felt a bit sorry for Scotland getting run over they way they did as they seemed ready for a battle (which ended in the yellow card). Can't see Ireland beating England though, not unless they can hold a tight defence and keep knocking points through penalties.
 
My word French Rugby is in a mess, following the announcement that Stade Français and Racing 92 are merging with little or no consulation with out side parties and players, the players of Stade have voted 99.8% in favour of Strike action so have not trained and will not play the game against Castre at the weekend.
 
TheMightyTen said:
My word French Rugby is in a mess, following the announcement that Stade Français and Racing 92 are merging with little or no consulation with out side parties and players, the players of Stade have voted 99.8% in favour of Strike action so have not trained and will not play the game against Castre at the weekend.
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Yeah absolute joke and a bit of an embarrassment to be honest, I'm 100% understand why they chose to strike but I have tickets for the Ospreys game. :(
 
England for Saturday.

Team: Brown; Watson, Joseph, Farrell, Daly; Ford, Youngs; Marler, Hartley, Cole, Launchbury, Lawes, Itoje, Haskell, B Vunipola.

Replacements: George, M Vunipola, Sinckler, Wood, Hughes, Care, Te'o, Nowell.

Looks good to me, Big Billy back to starting, we'll need him to keep Irelands back row honest, Watson on the wing gives us some frightening wide pace that already has a great understanding with JJ. Glad Daly has recovered quickly from his "assault" and can get a start, we might need his long range hooves.

Looking forward to it, although the championship is done and dusted the world record wins, history making Grand Slam and Lions subtext make it an all to play for match. Added to the other games where World ranking points are majorly important for the World Cup draw in a couple of months it's going to be a top SUper Saturday :D
 
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