Men's Six Nations, Week Four

This weekend could see Ireland win the championship, if they win with a bonus point Scotland can’t catch them next week although they can deny them the back-to-back Grand Slams and Triple Crown. If England somehow win, those dreams are over. Thanks to injury and suspension we have a new look French back line too. Will it click against Wales? Italy v Scotland is surely almost as predictable as England v Ireland this year? So what actually happened?

The Matches

Italy v Scotland

If you look at the scoring profiles of these teams - not something I put much stock in, particularly over so few games - you might not be too surprised at the pattern of scoring in this match. Scotland tend to score in the first half, and can’t score in the last 20, whilst Italy score the bulk of their points in that last quarter. It was a bit more even for Italy in this match, which helped them stay relatively close at halftime, which probably helped their morale. But once they pulled ahead, then pulled more than seven points ahead, it got nervous as Scotland tried to come back but they weren’t to be denied.

One of the things we’ve seen from Italy, even last year, is that they’ve tended to get worse over the tournament. They have started with confidence and hope, got smacked around a bit causing these to both drained away, with a knock on effect on the performances. With Quesada we’ve seen the opposite. Yes, Ireland thumped them, but Ireland have thumped everyone so far this year. (That changed later on in the afternoon.) Italy have been competitive against England and, but for the ball falling off the tee and then hitting the upright would have beaten France. This week, despite the ball hitting the upright, and a different one falling off the tee, they won.

Regardless of the Wales v France result, the game against Wales next week is still the wooden spoon decider, but Italy will travel with belief rather than hope.

There were lots of things that worked in this match, on both sides of the ball. But Italy stopped van der Merwe scoring. Ask England how easy that is… Italy are in a place where I think it’s fair to say Garbisi had a five minute spell where he just seemed to turn off. It didn’t cost them the game this time, but it could in future, he needs to work on that. Not before next week please!

Congratulations Italy. The promise that we’ve been seeing is really coming through. Long may it last.

England v Ireland

This match was perhaps more shocking than the first match. Ireland have looked like winning back-to-back slams at a canter, no one even close to them in the northern hemisphere. By contrast, England have looked, fairly, like a team in transition. They have basically been trying to put a Springbok blitz defence and and Irish million-shapes offence, at least their forms of each on top of their players and both take time to learn.

I would say that it looked a lot like England have, at least for this match, thrown out the Irish attack pattern and gone back to something simpler. It didn’t work perfectly, the players still don’t know each other well, but it worked better - well enough that England scored three tries to Ireland's two. Likewise, on the other side of the ball, the blitz was still there, but it was slower and more precise than we’ve seen in previous weeks. Is that how it will be going forward or an adjustment to stop the Irish attack, very potent before this week, exploiting the gaps that it’s left. I guess time will tell.

This match was tense throughout, with neither side really able to take control. England practically camped in the Irish half but, again, couldn’t really convert that into points reliably. In the first half Ireland really only had four scoring opportunities, but took four penalties from them and went in ahead. The second half was not dissimilar, except Ireland manufactured two chances to score tries and took them too. At one point this gave them a nine point lead, which looked like it might be enough, but a converted try then a Smith drop goal gave England the win.

While I think it’s fair to say Ireland had a bad game, you can ask how much of that was England refusing to let them play and, for the first time in ages, pretty much doing that for the full 80 minutes. But, much though it pains me, I think we need to say something about the new English back three. Freeman, Feyi-Waboso (should be in red, boyo) and Furbank might not be the finished article yet, but this simplified attack pattern seems to get all three of them touching the ball in space far more than England back three players have for years and they’re repaying that with making useful, dangerous metres, making scoring opportunities rather than just defusing bombs. They’re doing that too, because they’re feeling good about themselves.

The race for the title is, surprisingly, still alive, and both these sides are involved. Back-to-back slams and triple crowns will have to wait.

Wales v France

This match was ultimately decided by the French forward replacements, who were able to continue to deliver power at the scrum and in the loose that their Welsh counterparts couldn’t handle. Before the replacements came on the French pack had their moments, the first scrum ended in a French penalty for example, and they won another penalty under the Welsh posts, but mostly their power in the scrum was negated or controlled, in the loose it didn’t show and at the breakdown it was just absent. Wales didn’t really dominate at lineout time, but the stats will correctly show their lineout worked better, and when the French did win their own ball they never got a driving maul working.

Wales mostly defended well, largely shackled Penaud, despite him making some breaks, and identified their chances to attack and took them - something that has been lacking against Ireland and England. That may seem odd to say about a side that conceded 45 points, but it’s important to realise they were ahead at about the hour mark, then the power game smashed holes in the defence and the score started to run away.

There were a lot of positives in the Welsh performance, despite the loss.

The French didn’t put in a complete performance here. At times the vaunted Edwards defence was being ripped to pieces as Wales ran through gaps I could have found. Some of that was Le Garrec, Ramos and Depoortere not playing well together, plus Barre not playing well in combination with Penaud and LBB. In fairness, Le Garrec is a new cap, Ramos is out of position, Depoortere and Barre are on debut… so I’m not really blaming them, they’re going to make mistakes. But we know Edwards can make improvements quickly. In attack, they lacked fluency as well, with far too many players over-running the ball far too often, leading to forward passes that robbed them of momentum at crucial times. However, looking back to previous weeks, this is a huge improvement - they were actually creating situations with the ball where someone could be in front of the carrier and induce a forward pass after all.

I’m going to say the much faster service from Le Garrec and the better distribution from Depoortere both helped here. He might not be the huge carrier that Danty is, but this year he’s got softer hands, makes better choices and can put players away.

Happy Coaches

Quesada must be right up here. Italy have continued to improve under him, rather than declining across the tournament, and have built on their near miss against France with a win against Scotland, who this year are a far better side than France. He might not have believed, in his heart of hearts, that Italy could win this when he was giving his team talks, but they went out and did it.

Borthwick I’m putting under Quesada because I think England beating Ireland is a shock this year, but not overall. I also think he’s changed the plans he wanted to implement, whereas Quesada didn’t. Whether this will be Borthwick's new plan or it was a one-off to beat Ireland we’ll have to see.

Galthié is in third. Yes, Wales had a chance to win this, but France reacted after that draw against Italy and, although it wasn’t seamless, they seem to have finally woken up with some selection changes, two forced, one overdue. But still happy.

Gatland would be a lot higher up if rugby was a shorter game. But after 60’ Wales were in the lead, that’s a big positive. The team largely handled the French power for that hour, also positive. The strength in depth of France is greater, but with time that will improve for Wales. Far more positives than negatives here.

Townsend will not be impressed at all. I would have happily bet your house on Scotland winning and boom… oops, sorry. Despite their loss against France and scare against Wales, the Scots haven’t looked frail really, but today they did and Townsend had problems.

Farrell I’m putting under Townsend because, while both sides were 'meant' to win, this was more than just a match for Ireland and Farrell. No triple crown repeat, no slam repeat. No space in the history books.

Looking Ahead

From this perspective all these matches seem to matter, although that isn’t necessarily the case.

Wales v Italy

The strength of Italy is not the same as that of France - they don’t have a monster pack to bully you and then monster replacements to keep doing it. That’s a positive for Wales, as is playing at home. Italy will be looking to build on their success, but won’t have the same crowd support. Wales need to win with a bp, or win and deny Italy a bp to avoid the wooden spoon. I think Wales can win, but won’t be surprised if a very confident Italy back up their victory over Scotland.

Ireland v Scotland

Both sides will be looking to bounce back, after shock defeats. You’d expect Ireland to find that easier, especially playing at home, but it will be interesting to see. If Ireland can conjure two points - a draw or two bonus points - they can sew up the Championship, although all the history of the back-to-back slams has gone. I think Ireland will win this one, they’re a good-to-great side that had a bad day, whereas Scotland are a good side that had a bad day. That top end for Ireland is better, and I think they’ll bounce back more readily to something closer to their best, becoming back-to-back champions.

France v England

Even if this is an “empty match” this is still Le Crunch and both sides will want to win.

England will want to show that last week was not a fluke, that they can build on it and be delivering a team that will be challenging to win in their summer tour in Japan and New Zealand, plus challenging to win next year’s M6N as part of their progress towards 2027 in Australia.

France will want to build on the positive parts of their performance against Wales. They improved their defensive alignment during the game which is a good sign, Penaud started cutting loose, and while the Welsh scramble defence always got to him, the English blitz defence is more susceptible to a rampaging winger…

I can see this going either way but, overall, I think the French are only trying to learn one thing - a new attack - while the English are trying to learn two. It’s hard for both of them to keep clicking, game after game, at this point in their development which is what England will need to win away, while France need to tweak their defence and hope Le Garrec's speed and Depoortere's hands continue to help their backs shine after their huge forwards knock holes in the blitzing English line. So I’m leaning towards France winning, but not all that confidently.