Women's Six Nations 2022, Round One

Last year, in case you’ve forgotten, England and France were streets ahead of the rest and England beat France in a match that was abandoned due to a power cut. Wales got stomped on by everyone. This year Wales have announced full time contracts for 12 players, additional part time contracts for a further 16. France and England are still professional outfits, no one else is. It’s probably too early this year for that to have made a huge difference to the Welsh players, but next year it should. In addition, the Irish team missed out on this year’s RWC, but the others made it into the competition, so the Irish are already looking to the next cycle, the others are building their squad for this October in New Zealand.

Scotland v England

While there were moments of this match that were great from a Scottish perspective if you were to watch pretty much any five minute period you might ask who let these teams play each other.

England have a fully professional squad and while the Scottish women are supported by the SRFU and most of their side play in the Premier15s, they’re playing for Loughborough as students rather one of the semi-pro or professional clubs. The difference in strength, speed and skills showed at every turn. Sure, there were massive spot tackles from the Scots. Their scrum was surprisingly solid and their lineout worked pretty nicely too, at least on their throw.

However, on attack, England just numbered up and made their tackles. They didn’t quite steal the ball at the breakdown at will, but at times it felt like it.

Perhaps the most obvious way of telling the quality of the teams apart was the kicking to touch from penalties. I don’t know that there’s an official stat but, by eye, the English comfortably chewed off 30-40 metres each time. The Scottish 10-20 metres. Obviously that’s an individual skill but it seemed to nicely encapsulate the difference in skill levels between the two sides.

It wasn’t totally one-sided, I think England were a bit lucky not to see yellow on a couple of occasions as they just kept giving away penalty after penalty under sustained pressure. In the first 20 minutes or so England looked rusty but still dominant. Once the rust was knocked off they were just in a different league. Overall, 57-5 feels a bit unfair in some ways, the Scottish attack was better than that, however the 50+ point margin seems about right. 67-15 might have felt like a more genuine reflection of the match.

Ireland v Wales

There’s an adage, possibly a truism even, in rugby that it’s the forwards that win the match, the backwards decide by how much. Although that’s often too trite, it seems like a fair reflection of this match. Wales were appreciably stronger up front - not totally dominant but definitely the stronger side - while Ireland were stronger in the backs.

This meant that Ireland tended to score the prettier looking tries but, over the course of the match, Wales created and took more chances, outscoring Ireland by five tries to three. Considering last year this was a 45-0 shut out by Ireland this is a huge swing! However, there is some weirdness going on here. Wales qualified for the RWC this year, Ireland didn’t. So this was a largely experienced Welsh squad building to New Zealand in October up against a young Irish squad building for the future. The Irish kiddies performed creditably, and next year, when all the other W6N sides are rebuilding they will be a year ahead in that process. However, Wales are looking to be something other than the whipping boys in the pack behind England and France this year and step one of that has been achieved.

France v Italy

France were predicted to win this but for the first 10-15 minutes Italy looked the better side. Part of that was France had a really young set of backs - 11 caps between them, part was that Italy were just really up for the match. As the match progressed the French youngsters settled down and the difference in class for the fully professional group came through however, the Italians stayed up for the fight and made them work for it, at least for the first hour.

What happened then? Well obviously this is getting into substitution time. The French replacement backs were all a step up in experience, but their new scrum half was greased lightning compared to their starter, although somewhat more inaccurate, and suddenly the backs were getting faster ball and were able to attack a disorganised defensive line. The match went from close to tearing away. I think that, unlike the French, the Italian subs were a step down in quality as well but it’s hard to be completely sure as the step up from the French was so marked.

Happy Coaches

Unlike in the men's game I don’t think there’s anything particularly sneaky going on here.

The Welsh coaching team (currently we have no head coach) must be the happiest. Despite the caveats about an experienced Welsh squad building towards the RWC against a rebuilding Ireland, they came in and turned things around and performed.

I think Middleton next. England might have things to work on, and might not have tried their youngsters, but it was job done.

Hayraud is next. France’s young backs are not there yet but they’ve got another game and as the match went along they learnt and fought their way back into control. There is a lot to work on, which pulls them down under England to my mind.

Of the rest, it’s really close between McWilliams and Di Giandomenico. I think McWilliams just edges it, his youngsters have a way to go but that’s fine and they still looked decent. They will improve over time. Di Giandomenico went out with a plan that his players implemented and they disrupted the French for a big chunk of time. It will be interesting to see if the others can do the same.

That brings us to Easson last. Scotland talked a good game before the match but deserved to lose by 50+ on the day. Oops.

Predictions

Two of these are easy. The weekend starts with France v Ireland and ends with Italy v England. Anything less than a bonus point win for France and England will be a shock.

In the middle of that we’ve got Wales v Scotland. This is really hard to predict. Wales are much better than last year and buoyed by a win. Scotland were hopeful before the match, then smashed again by England, but it’s smashed again by England… I’m tipping Wales but not with any confidence. If I was Scottish, I’d tip Scotland with equally little confidence. This is a tip from the heart, not the head. There’s just not enough useful evidence to go on to make a better tip yet.