Women's Six Nations 2022, Round Two

Ireland v France

Last week I described Ireland v Wales as a battle between the dominant Welsh forwards and dominant Irish backs that, ultimately, proved the adage that it’s the forwards that decide who wins a rugby match.

While I’d love to say that Wales are threatening France and England in all honesty they’re competing to be top of the chasing pack. Why all this about Wales in a match they weren’t involved in? Well France are better than Wales up front and much better than Wales in the backs. In this match it certainly showed. France had the bonus point wrapped up before half-time, and kept running in tries for fun. Ireland eventually scored a consolation try and while it was well-worked it was just about the only time they strung more than the odd flash of good play together without a pass going to ground or a great tackle stopping it dead or just losing the ball at the breakdown. Sometimes stats aren’t that useful but when Ireland cough the ball up 23 times it is an indication of just how dominant the French were at all phases. There were four lineout steals and two tighthead scrums in that count; penalties, dropped ball and jackalling made up the rest.

Honestly until they meet England in the final week there’s no one who will challenge the French. The Irish though, they’re potentially in for a long tournament, we’ll have to see.

This match was also notable for weird bounces. As we watched in the normal view high kicks all, I think with exception, bounced to the right. You’d expect, loosely, half and half, over the match, but they all went the same way. Very weird.

Wales v Scotland

One of the enduring clichés in sport's reporting, if I glorify what I do as reporting, is “it was a game of two halves.” This game is a prime example of why that cliché endures.

In the first half, Wales couldn’t avoid the ref's whistle, giving up I think eight penalties to hardly any from Scotland. This meant the game was almost all played down near the Welsh try line and near the end of the half they’d made 120 tackles to Scotland's 43. A bit like the men in years gone by, the Welsh women are building a strong defence and, as noted last week, they have a good pack so when they had one chance close to the line a lineout, driving maul and try. Those two factors kept the score down to 14-7.

Scotland scored early in the second half and then the match just reversed completely. Scotland ended up pretty much equal on penalties, having been miles behind. They were a bit lucky not to have a penalty try awarded against them, in my opinion, and although the match ended with a defensive stand from Wales, only fitting really, the three tries that the Welsh ran in, in a nice variety of ways, really felt inevitable.

Wales are not there yet, but for a team that lost all their matches last year, they’ve come on in leaps and bounds. They’re not going to challenge France or England in this W6N. They stand a decent chance of getting into the quarter finals at the RWC and next year’s W6N, when France and England will lose some stars but Wales will be another year more experienced and have another year of professionalism, they might break up into the top tier.

Italy v England

Italy, as they were against France last week, were outclassed but were defensively complete bastards. They played with a condensed defensive line, which meant they could make gang tackles and put bodies into the ruck very quickly, which slowed and disrupted English possession. Normally this has a weakness - there’s obviously an edge or corner, get round that and there’s open territory ahead of you. But the Italians drifted hard and the edge wasn’t really there to be exploited. Where England could punch holes in the defence was if they managed to get an offload in the tackle - because there were often three or four Italians committed an offload almost inevitably put someone into space.

That doesn’t mean it was low scoring, at least not for the Red Roses. While their backs looked disjointed, as did their forwards when trying to carry the ball out wide, in the set piece it was a different story. At both scrum and lineout England looked dominant, milking scrum penalties at will and stealing far too much Italian lineout ball for anyone's comfort.

To add to that, Italy's attack was not as fluent as last week. Some of that was of their own making, and possibly the weather - it’s much colder across Europe this weekend than last - but they struggled with the English defensive press as well.

Italy have had the roughest of starts - France then England - but that means an easier end and we'll see where they are in the ranks of the rest of the pack.

Happy Coaches

Ioan Cunningham. Last week I erroneously said Wales had no head coach. We do and he must be happy. Wales produced a huge defensive effort when they were under the cosh, and took their chances when they were offered. It’s not going to last (Wales face England then France next), but 10 points from their first two games is all head coach could ask for.

I am going to put Hayraud next. France weren’t perfect but it’s little bits to work on rather than systemic issues.

Middleton has to be next. Although England were far from perfect they were still far too good for Italy and are on top of the table on points difference. There are too many things for him to work on for him to be really more than content still and eyeing the end of the tournament and wondering.

Di Giandomenico is next I think. That might seem odd for a team so soundly beaten, but they’ve faced the big fish in the barrel and made a complete bloody nuisance of themselves both times. There is a lot for him, and them, to be proud about.

McWilliams is next. Another big loser, yes, but this was the expected result. I think they were so comprehensively outplayed it’s hard to take positives from this match, but there aren’t negatives either.

Easson last. While I praised the Welsh defence, from the other side the Scottish attack was poor for the second week in a row. Even against England that amount of possession should translate into points. Virtually a whole half inside the Welsh 22 and coming away with two tries, one of which relied on a fluky bounce beating two Welsh defenders to land in the arms of the sole Scottish attacker is a return to give any head coach ulcers.

Fearless Predictions

Next Saturday we have England v Wales. This is the first of two tough matches in a row for Wales, where I expect them to lose but it will be interesting to see how the forwards and the Welsh defence hold up.

Sunday brings us Scotland v France which the French should win at a canter, then Ireland v Italy the match of interest. I think Italy have too much for the youngsters of Ireland, if they have kept their morale, but we shall see.