Women's Six Nations, Round Four

Wales v France

As is traditional in the M6N, the W6N Wales v France match was played on a Friday night. However, unlike the last M6N game, this one was played in front of a record crowd.

The crowd that were there in person, and those watching on TV, were treated to a good match. That might seem like an odd thing to say about a match that ended up 33-5 but the Welsh defence stood up and made the French attack work, in response the French attack largely scored through absolutely top tier tries. There’s one that is seriously a contender for try of the year. Likewise, while the Welsh attack was largely unsuccessful, it was present and active. The French were forced to defend, and defend against a willing and eager attack. The result might not have been in doubt after a great first twenty minutes from Les Bleues, but this was one of the top sides against the third best side and a great warm-up for the French before they play England in the decider next week.

On a more analytical basis, this was a match of odd dichotomies. The French were all over the Welsh forwards at set piece time, in a way the English just weren’t last week. Looking ahead to next week, that will be an interesting battle where you have to tip the French. However, at breakdown time, the Welsh were clearly ahead in both turnovers and penalties. I think this probably suggests the French were bigger, all round, in their forwards, and that meant the Welsh were faster to the breakdowns and in better positions over the ball. How that will play out next week will be interesting.

Applying the idea of dichotomies, the game can also be divided into before and after Sansus. She might not be France’s first choice scrum half, but she’s a real live wire and a long way ahead of her replacement. France, and anyone supporting them against England, will be hoping she was rested so she can have a long game next week rather than that she can only perform for 50 minutes at peak level.

Italy v Scotland

Where Wales v France was 3 v 2 and, although the gulf between second and third is still large, we had two teams with paid players^ striving to carry out their trade and a good match, Italy v Scotland is 6 v 5 - Scotland ahead courtesy of a single bonus point - and all amateur players.

While it might sound harsh, I’m sure the players from both sides would love to be paid and develop their skills further, but as someone that loves watching rugby this was a tough watch. The attacks were very easy to read, which made the defences look good - I don’t think that’s actually the case. Discipline at the breakdown was appalling, on both sides. Penalties for not rolling away, holding on, not releasing, playing the ball on the floor and more cropped up so often it destroyed any real sense of building pressure, building phases on most occasions. Add in some knocks on and they never popped up a counter showing the number of phases. It may have gone beyond five a few times, I doubt it ever reached ten. Both lineouts and scrums were a lottery. If the rest of the match had been of a decent quality I might have said they were evenly matched in the scrums but honestly, with the general standard of everything else, it felt more like they were equally incompetent.

I was going to write that a draw seemed like a fair result but, with 25 to go, Italy discovered a rolling, almost running, maul from the lineout. It wasn’t really consistent - they didn’t win the lineout as often as they should have done still - but when they did, they chewed the metres of territory frequently earning a penalty, another lineout and if it worked another maul.

This gave the Italians an edge that undoubtedly led to their win but that shouldn’t be taken to mean they were actually good, just less bad than Scotland.

^ Technically Italy have just announced professional contracts for 25 players. But it was during this week and, as I understand it, they start on 1 May. So Italy will have professional players soon, but they’re not quite there yet.

England v Ireland

This was a really messy game that really turned on a yellow card. Not that England really looked like losing before that, but they scored 21 points in 10 minutes that stretched the game away to blow out proportions. A red card later in the match really made it one sided, as England ran in another two or three tries…

When England clicked they looked good but, much like France on Friday, there were errors galore. Overthrown lineouts, poor passes, and poor breakdown technique on both sides of the ball by England made it feel much more even than the scoreboard shows. Even Brian Moore, much improved as a commentator but an unabashed England supporter, said during the match that the score flatters England.

The injury list, for both sides, is worrying as well. But with all due respect to Ireland, who are facing Scotland, their injury list is less important in the scheme of things than England’s who might be missing for the grand slam decider.

Happy Coaches

Cunningham. I think Cunningham has more positives from this match than negatives, despite the score line. Wales lost to a better side, yes, but they really made them work for it. There’s work to be done, particularly in the tight five at scrum time, but they’re lessons you can work on with the team.

Hayraud I think is less happy than Cunningham despite her team’s victory, but she’s still pretty happy overall, especially after watching the errors from England. Essentially this was the team we expect to play against England next week and while they were really impressive at set piece and had flashes where they scored beautiful tries, that was it. They dropped the ball and were turned over at breakdowns far, far too often for her to be happy. She has positives - the French scored some beautiful tries - and things to work on but must be praying that the run out against the English and another week on the training field knocks the rust out of her team and they don’t give up anything like that number of spilled balls next week.

Middleton sneaks in to third place on my list. He’s not really happy, England we’re poor until that yellow card, and really scored in chunks when they had an extra player on the pitch, something they can’t rely on next week. Depending on the medics, England might also be without a few key players, and while they have strength in depth you don’t want to lose your stars if you can avoid it.

Di Giandomenico and McWilliams are really close for different reasons. I’m putting McWilliams slightly ahead of Di Giandomenico. For 50 minutes, more or less, Ireland we’re not exactly competitive in the sense of having a chance of winning, but were making England look mortal and keeping it close. A yellow card (that was honestly borderline red) changed that. There’s a lot for him to be proud of but, while I minimised the injuries and the inevitable suspension for the RC above, there’s enough to temper that and pull him down here.

Di Giandomenico is fifth. Not truly happy. It was a bad performance with one saving grace. There’s a lot to work on, but there’s the morale boost of a win to go with it.

Easson has an appalling performance and a loss. What more is there to say?