Women's Six Nations 2026, Week Two

There were questions after last week. Were England just rusty or disjointed with all their changes? How good are France with their new systems? How good are Ireland? After a result against Scotland that was very similar to the men's although at a different point in the championship, will Wales' women have a similar journey?

The Matches

Scotland v England

One of the oldest adages in rugby is that the forwards decide who wins, the backs decide by how much. England’s forwards dominated their Scottish opponents in every aspect of the game, almost completely. Scotland won odd lineouts and scrums, but it was usually bad ball, and England stole a lot of it or won penalties on Scottish put ins. English rucks averaged under two seconds across the game, which doesn’t always lead to winning, in the M6N Wales then England has the fastest rucks across all the games but finished sixth and fifth, with one win each. France had the slowest average ruck speed, but won. But for the Red Roses it was a fair sign of their forward dominance.

England were not perfect, not quite. But their mistakes were errors of ambition and cruel bounces rather than anything more serious. For example, Kildunne called for a kick through which she chased and on another day it would have led to a try. But the ball took a wicked bounce left and then another forward instead of up, beating her into touch. Another kick was a little too hard and the chasing Jones reached it a metre beyond the dead ball line rather than a metre inside it. No coach was s going to complain about either of those misses.

Despite these, and a couple of other errors, England ran in 12 tries, converted them all, and only conceded one. 84-7. Rust firmly removed, England looking ominous. Scotland brought down to earth with a bump.

Wales v France

For 25 glorious minutes Wales were, by far, the better team on the park. France were warned after about 12 minutes for repeated infringements at the lineout, then a more general warning, then had a prop sin-binned, then gave up a penalty try and Bourdon-Sansus was sent to the bin. Unfortunately, and in a sign of what was to come, even down to 13, the French defence was better than the Welsh attack, and as their players came back they first clawed their way back into the game, then into a 14-7 lead by halftime.

The scoreboard will tell you that the second half was all one way, but that’s not really true. All the scoring was, that much is true, but the forward battle was even, both sides had moments of ascendancy, but they balanced out and mostly it was an arm wrestle. The French backs attack was better than the Welsh defence on a number of occasions, but the Dragons kept getting back up and making tackles. They were clearly the second best team on the day, overall, and by some distance but they kept working to make it hard for Les Bleues to score and they were able to stop them on multiple occasions, right up until the final whistle. France won 38-7 and that feels about right.

Both coaches will come out of this match feeling pretty satisfied I think. Both teams had good periods, so they won’t be just saying “what went wrong here?” for the whole match review, there are clear and obvious positives to analyse. But there are lessons to learn too, more for Wales, probably more urgently for France. Wales are building from a disastrous 6N and RWC. Their performance against Scotland last week was already a huge improvement. A win against Italy would be great, but even a performance would be good. France are aiming, ultimately, to beat England. That might be beyond them this year, even at home, but their defence has looked good, so keeping it close might be on the cards this year, winning either next year or more likely the year after when they’re at home again could be a realistic goal.

Ireland v Italy

Ireland were almost always in control of this match, except for a brief period at the start where they scored and Italy pretty much scored straight away from the restart. But they comfortably stretched out from 7-5 to lead 45-10 at the break and 57-20 at full time. Ireland looked fluent and confident in attack, moreso in the first half than the second when they took their foot off the accelerator a bit, but their defence remains somewhat porous. They were largely able to shut down the Italian attack, but twice in each half Italy broke through and scored a try. Three of these were scored by the backs, and you have to think that both the French and English will take the Irish defence apart, particularly out wide. We know England didn’t due to rustiness, we'll have to see about the French. The French defence has, so far, been the most impressive to me, the Irish attack could well be stifled against it.

Italy, on the other hand, are looking disappointing. They’ve made some changes, and some are looking good but others are leaving them looking meh. Already their match against Wales looks like the wooden spoon decider.

Happy Coaches

1. Mitchell. 84-7 is definitely a result. We’ve seen rugby perfection for over a half this year, and England were not there. However, all the rustiness we saw in last week’s performance was well and truly gone this week. England were back to their ruthless, dangerous self and the new players and the more experienced ones worked together seamlessly.
2. Lynn. I know Wales were the weaker side overall, and there is a lot to do with their backs, but that opening 25 minutes, and the defensive effort throughout was immense. Although there’s a long way to go, there are a lot of positives to take from this game.
3. Bemand. Ireland had sewn it up by half time, then relaxed, which stops him being higher up. But it was a solid performance.
4. Ratier. I considered putting Ratier higher up. When France came back into the game, they did really well. However, they were slow against Italy in the first half last week. They were disastrous against Wales for most of the first half this week. Twice might not be a pattern yet, but it’s not a happy place.
5. Fukofuka. Such is life as a coach in the W6N. Happy for holding on to win one week, murdered by England the following. Sadly there aren’t really any positives to take out of it, except it’s over for a year.
6. Roselli. Arguably Italy had a better performance than Scotland, but England are a far more formidable opponent than Ireland. Roselli would have hoped for much more from his team, but it didn’t appear. That puts him last on this list.

Looking Ahead

• England v Wales: The only questions here are how many tries England will score, and will Wales score any? If it’s under 64 points to England and over 7 for Wales, thats two ticks for the Welsh.
• Italy v Scotland: Scotland probably ought to win this, although Italy at home could be a challenge. It’s hard to tell how good Italy really are this year. It’s pretty clear that England are the best side, France and Ireland are second and third, probably in that order, then Scotland, Italy and Wales, in some order. Italy have faced France and Ireland and been seriously outclassed. Scotland have been thrashed by England and narrowly beaten Wales. Predicting this one is hard, but I think Scotland edge it.
• France v Ireland: On paper this should be an easy win for France. From what we’ve seen so far I think Ireland might have a better 80 minute game, although I assume Ratier and the players will be working on that, but France seem to have a much better defence and that, plus playing at home will be the difference between them.