Men's Six Nations 2022 Round 2

Round two kicked off with the two matches full of real tension on the Saturday, Sunday was England v Italy, a match that we all assumed was a foregone conclusion.

Wales v Scotland

After last week’s performances Scotland were red hot favourites despite not having won in Cardiff for ages. But the match did not play out that way; Scotland started with a bang but Wales Wales withstood the attack and replied a well-earned penalty a few moments later, then a second a few minutes later. Scotland fought their way back into the game. And really that’s the story of the match. One side or the other would edge ahead, he other would pull themselves back into the match. But as time went by, especially as the second half went on, this tight match seemed to affect the two teams differently. It’s probably fair to say in the first half the home crowd kept Wales in it at times. In the second half though, the crowd lifted Wales and seemed to dispirit Scotland in roughly equal measure. The Scot’s started giving away stupid penalties, making too many handling errors and just finding ways to give the balls back to the Welsh.

I will admit, the difference in the Welsh between last week and this week, in all aspects of the game, made me fear for the French. You often hear “you can only play what’s in front of you” when there’s a mismatch like NZ v Fiji. But were Wales just looking so poor last week because of the opposite - Ireland were so good they imposed themselves in all aspects of the game? On reflection, I think a bit but, while Wales stuck to their tackling last week, Ireland’s fast start demoralised them and they had too many youngsters, not enough old heads and never really recovered. This week they started by stopping a good attacking move, pushing deep, scoring two penalties and a decent start to build some confidence plus the support of the crowd.

Scotland seemed almost to have raised their game to beat England and just couldn’t repeat it this week. But Wales played like a totally different side to last week too. The lineout functioned, not perfectly but well. The defence, except for a couple of moments early, functioned as a unit and when broken scrambled well. Although LRZ is the proximate cause of that early try, the whole defensive line was too narrow and he was trying to cover two players and more than 15m of space and he almost forced the Scottish winger into touch. If the defence had lined up even a little bit better he’d have been those two steps further out and made the tackle. Basham looked good again. Morgan and Watkin both looked fine on debut, Watkin looked a thousand times better than Adams because he was in his natural position.

Wales still have issues, some on defence, many more on offence. The fact that they’ve got lots of babies really showed there, as they were fine for a few phases but they gradually needed to stop and think about what they were meant to be doing and it meant they didn’t hit the ruck, weren’t standing in the right place for the pass or whatever and the attack lost all momentum. It will come and it was a lot better than last week. Two weeks to get it together for England…

France v Ireland

I wish I could just write about the rugby. Looking at the score you’d think this was a match quite similar to Wales v Scotland. That’s not quite true. France totally dominated the first half, but the defences from both sides were so dominant that, apart from a glorious try in the opening two minutes they took all their points from kicks at goal. France also played with a clear plan: if we’re in our half, get down there; if we’re in their half, play some rugby. Ireland didn’t seem able to cope with the defensive pressure and impose their plan. In the second half, Ireland scored two quick tries and then France applied the pressure again.

That’s not quite the whole story though. Angus Gardner, the referee, had a shocking game. He changed how he referred the breakdown between halves and he seemed to blatantly ignore offences by the Irish on the French. Not once but multiple times.

Fortunately France prevailed against the fifteen men in green AND the man in orange but he had a real shocker.

It’s not certain that France will win but they were favourites before the tournament started and this has just strengthened their grip on the cup. They’ve now got two fingers firmly wrapped around a handle. England, Scotland and Wales to go. But from what we’ve seen so far, this French side are good enough to beat them all.

Italy v England

This is a weird game. If you look at the score, 33-0, you would say that England ran out comfortable winners, nothing to write about. If you watched the game, there were times when that was true. Smith’s try was a thing of beauty and nicely worked. A couple of others were worked though the phases and showed true dominance. But two of the English tries came from brain farts that occurred not really because of pressure but because of youthful mistakes by Italian players, mistakes they won’t make next year. Equally a combination of English lack of discipline and Italian defence - which was overwhelmed too often for comfort but kept its structure phase after phase after phase in a way that would gladden the heart of even Shaun Edwards, something that is truly new this year - kept England scoreless for half an hour in the second half, something that will worry Jones and have the Welsh, French and Irish defence coaches - two of whom have beaten the All Blacks attack in the last six months - analysing and licking their lips.

Since they won, it would be rude not to the give the last word to England. While I can be rude to the English, Randall looked far sharper than Youngs at 9.

Happy Coaches

It’s hard to imagine that any of the coaches are happier than Pivac. Wales needed to perform and they duly did. Not every issue was addressed, there is a lot to work on, particularly in attack, but the improvement was marked and the attack was better too. A small number of changes to the starting side transformed it totally.

Galthié has to be next. In order to win the championship, France didn’t have to beat Ireland, they could lose and beat England, Scotland and Wales, ideally with bonus points, but losing to Ireland in Paris would have seriously dented their credentials while boosting Irish morale. Both Galthié and Edwards will be angry at the ten minutes where Ireland ran rampant and scored two tries, and Edwards will be incandescent at the first try and the way Penaud and Jaminet both just faded away from the ball (Jaminet in particular, that was his ball to take). Despite that, it was a solid win against a good Irish side and Galthié will be happy with that.

Then it’s a tough call between Crowley and Jones. Italy stood up and were counted for the full 80, and created a number of real attacking opportunities against England, then blew them through silly individual errors. England played better, in the ways that mattered, but in the second half lost focus - possibly forgivable - and discipline - really not forgivable - dropping ball, giving away penalties and so on. Better teams than Italy will punish them if they keep doing that. I’m going to put Crowley just ahead of Jones, his side are improving, England had individuals who performed better but the team are making the same old mistakes.

Then we have Farrell. While Farrell must be bitterly disappointed to have lost, Ireland came away with a bonus point, are still in the hunt for the overall win and played well. They restricted France to two tries and a load of penalties, scored three tries of their own. This was the heavyweight clash we’d expected and Ireland stood up and were counted.

Finally we have Townsend. Yes, it was a close run thing and, just like Ireland, technically Scotland are still in it. But for Scotland to win they have to beat Ireland and France, two tough matches, and the way they appeared to come off the boil from last week to this has got to be frustrating and disappointing.

Predictions

Really it’s too early for confident predictions for two weeks time. There’s a world of injuries, recovery and covid out there! However, bearing in mind I might want to change these when I see actual squad announcements…

Scotland v France

Scotland will be keen to improve. France will be keen to keep on winning. They also might have revenge for last year on their minds. This is a potential banana-skin for France but they have bigger challenges ahead (England in Paris) and the French to win this one.

England v Wales

England have systematic problems with discipline and three of their five tries came from luck or a moment of genius. Wales are building, and have a history of improving through the tournament and raising their game whenever they play against England. This is a tough one to call, my head says it’s going to be tight, my heart always says Wales. I think the confidence of the win over Scotland plus they way they improved from the Ireland game, Wales have enough to do it. However, of all my predictions this is my most tentative.

Ireland v Italy

Ireland will be keen to put on a performance and rack up the points difference in case that matters in the final weekend. It has before, and fairly recently. Much like Ireland v Wales I expect this to be relentless, one way pressure and I hope Italy can avoid a cricket score and fire some attacking shots of their own. We know they have a better defence than in years gone by, but it’s going to hammered time and time again.