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Women's Six Nations, 2026, Week 5

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Every game this week has questions on the line. Can Wales finally win a game? Will Ireland rue their performance against France and have to settle for third or can Scotland upset them too? Can France finally defeat England? Wales v Italy In the first half this match was very much tit-for-tat. Italy would score and Wales would hit back. The difference between them was marginal, in all aspects of the game, Italy edged turnovers, Wales edged territory and set pieces, and thanks to slightly better kicking, the scoreboard 19-17. Then came the second half. It wasn’t quite one-way traffic, but Italy scored four tries before the Welsh replied. They scored one and were a bit unlucky not to score a second. Brian Moore always says you don’t deserve to score, but seven tries to five feels to me, as a biased Welsh fan, like a fairer reflection of the balance of the match. Italy were markedly better, but not that much better. Wales seem to have a weird problem. Overall their second halves have b...
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Women's Six Nations 2026, Week 4

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Really there probably aren’t any interesting matches this week. England should sweep aside Italy in Parma, even on the road France should beat Scotland and whilst Wales are improving, Ireland at home are probably still a step too far. England v Italy England tried to make it interesting, with multiple changes to their tight five. Some were forced through injury, some were selection choices. In most aspects of the game it really didn’t seem to affect them. Italy scored a try from a driving maul, it’s debatable whether a more experienced group of forwards, familiar with each other could have stopped it or not. Italy also scored a penalty try when Kildunne deliberately knocked the ball on out on the wing and 5m from the try line, absolutely killing an overlap. The former Red Rose commentator was outraged, saying “but there was cover there,” which might have mattered if they were 15m out, but given the cover tacklers were pretty much on the 15m line and the person who should have received...
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Women's Six Nations 2026, week three

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This week feels like the week that is probably the most predictable, at least going into it, in terms of results. England are going to beat Wales, the only real question is, can we continue to see signs of Welsh improvement, even against the Red Roses? Italy have been poor, Scotland mid, but mid beats poor, even away. And whilst Ireland are trying to challenge for second place, doing so in France, and with Ratier keen to have a big improvement after last week’s terrible first 25 minutes feels like a bridge too far. The Games England v Wales So one side of the ledger you have England scoring 10 tries in a comfortable victory. That should be measured against the 12 they scored last week against Scotland as a benchmark, and the four missed conversions are an indication of how wide many of those tries were dotted down which, in turn, is a reflection of hard the Welsh defence kept working, kept making the English make another pass, and another one. Most of the time they were good enough to...
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Women's Six Nations 2026, Week Two

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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 ...
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Women's Six Nations 2026 Week One

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As the first Six Nations after a World Cup, there are changes galore. Ratier has replaced Mignot and Ortiz in charge of France, Fukofuka is in charge of Scotland, and although Mitchell, Bemand, Roselli and Lynn remain the men in charge for England, Ireland, Italy and Wales, I know at least England and Wales have had pretty major shifts in their assistant coaches as well. Players have, inevitably, retired. This seems to have mostly affected England, but everyone has probably lost a few. The English squad has also been hit by a rash of post-world cup pregnancies, I’m not sure I’ve got them all, and I’ve got four on my list. Most teams have injuries as well, I’m not sure it makes much difference to the squad if they’re RWC winners or not, but the British media certainly reports it that way. The Games France v Italy In the early part of this game both sides looked better than last year. Some of that was little things, Italy have shifted Dinka in to 13 to replace Rigoni (of the yellow scru...
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2026 Men's Six Nations Review and Team of the Tournament

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I don’t normally do a review of the tournament. Typically, after a week or two you get to see the teams locked in to a kind of stream, and you can predict the results from there on. There might be the odd upset but that’s it. So, if you looked at week one, Italy had arrived after beating Scotland, France and England were awesome and Le Crunch was going to decide the championship and the Grand Slam. Ireland were definitely past it. Then Ireland staggered past Italy, but the Italian scrum destroyed the Irish scrum, and you could rack that up to the Aviva factor. But Scotland demolished England. And everything we thought we knew in advance was thrown out of the window. This year’s M6N feels more like a series of overlapping character arcs, so let’s look at it that way, in finishing order. France : The French started with a bang, a perfect half of rugby against Ireland and everything went downhill from there! That’s harsh, even in their two worst performances France were pretty damn goo...
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Men's Six Nations 2026, Week 5

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Fairly unusually all of these games are of interest, at least potentially, to the neutral average punter and not just fans of the various teams and the tragics. The victor of Ireland v Scotland will win the Triple Crown and might win the Six Nations. Then, if Italy win, it’s their first time winning three games in a single tournament. If Wales win with a bonus point they can consign England to last place, any win breaks their three year Six Nations losing streak. There are neutrals who probably want any of those outcomes just about equally. In the final match, depending on the exact result of the first one, a French victory, maybe with a bonus point, wins them the Six Nations for this year, and a big win possibly consigns England to a wooden spoon. The Games Scotland v Ireland After ripping up the script and putting 50 points on France last week, can Scotland back it up and beat Ireland to win the Triple Crown and potentially the Six Nations? For the first 15 minutes or so, each entr...
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