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Men's Six Nations 2026, Week Four

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Coming in to this weekend France have one hand on the trophy, a bonus point win in Scotland and it’s all over, although they’ll be aiming for le grand chelem next week should that happen. Ireland can keep their hopes of the title alive with a bonus point win over Wales, which would see Scotland and Ireland facing off for the Triple Crown next week. Borthwick has wielded the axe liberally, the England side travelling to Rome has no fewer than 12 changes from the side that got thrashed by Ireland. The real question is do they have a new plan? This Italian side are not going to get bullied like the Welsh did in week one, and are good enough to take the English attacking system away from them. The Games Ireland v Wales An Ireland side buoyed by smashing England and playing at home against a Wales team growing in confidence and starting to build good combinations, unearth genuine talent that will form the nucleus of a team for years to come. Ireland are in decline, there’s no doubt, was t...
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Men's Six Nations 2026, Week Three

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We have some questions to answer this week. Can England bounce back or can Ireland continue to sneak their improvements and win another one? Scotland, historically, are awful after beating England, can Wales improve enough to beat them or can Scotland find some consistency? Are Italy the best scrummaging side in this championship? Galthié has bulked up his tight five to compete with them, how will that work? The Games England v Ireland This game started very slowly. Both lineouts were bad, England worse than Ireland, and both scrums barely any better. Neither side really had any fluidity in attack and it was a bit hard to tell why at first. As the game developed, it started to become a bit clearer though. Ireland had, mostly, abandoned their attacking structure of the last seven years, with three fairly close carriers in a line and one in the boot, trusting first Murray, then JGP to pick out the right player. But generally they were playing with Crowley flat and players arranged outsi...
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Men's Six Nations 2026, Week One

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Sixmas is here, on a Thursday night to avoid clashing with the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. For every team there are questions, France have left out some big names and Atonio has been forced to retire after a heart attack. Ireland have all new props and a reworked back line, largely thanks to injuries. England are also missing a lot of props. Wales have a reworked squad, again. Italy have too many injuries in places that they’re short of depth. There’s a sense that Scotland have to deliver now or Townsend will be fired. What will the matches reveal? France v Ireland Before the match there was an additional question here, would Dupont and Jalibert manage to work well together. Happily for anyone who isn’t Irish, the answer to that seems to be yes. I would say that about 20-25% of the time when Dupont could have done something, he passed to Jalibert instead, and trusted him to make a decision about what to do. Jalibert, likewise, probably got about 66% of the ball he might expect ...
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Autumn Internationals 2025, Weeks 3 and 4

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There are a lot of matches you’d predict to be one-sided this week, plus Ireland v South Africa, Rassie has never won at Landsdowne Road but will be looking to correct that. Wales v New Zealand New Zealand scored early and I’m sure much will be made of both LRZ's missed tackle and the defensive system that had him alone between the goalpost and the touch line against three All Blacks. That kind of narrow defence is pretty common, you see them even narrower with no winger out there, and LRZ got out and made good contact with Clarke, who was strong enough to ride the challenge. The Welsh coaches will definitely look at that and think about it, but probably not considering it a huge failure. The press won’t be so forgiving I’m sure. LRZ then had two lovely bits of play almost back-to-back that led to a Welsh try on the opposite wing. First DMac threw an awful pass, not clearly to anyone, and under Jordan's knees, that he knocked on trying to catch it. LRZ caught it and Wales reg...
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Autumn Internationals 2025, Week 2

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South Africa have named a hugely changed side from last week, Italy have to fancy their chances. Tandy et al will be hoping Wales can perform under new management, but missing Morgan thanks to a dislocated shoulder, and the disappointing Irish host the equally disappointing Australians. But some potentially exciting games too… Georgia v Canada Two relative minnows face off to start the weekend. However, Georgia are in 11th place, Canada in 24th, this is a huge mismatch. The commentators kept trying to big up the Canadians but, except for occasionally from set piece, and running empty metres after receiving a kick, they had the penetration of a wet noodle against a brick wall. The Georgian defence didn’t charge up fast by international standards, although faster than the Australians, concentrating on keeping their line straight, but the Canadians just bounced off it. The Georgian scrum was massively dominant, I’m not criticising the refereeing here, but a different referee could have...
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Autumn Internationals 2025, Week 1

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This is the first week within the test window, when everyone has their full complement of overseas players. Even Japan. Who got Saito from Toulouse, benefitted from this. These comments are given in the order I watched the games, not the order they occurred. Several clashed and I caught up with them late, so they appear at the bottom of the list. Ireland v Japan The final score will suggest this was an easy win but watching the game says anything that it was but. At half time the Japanese were within a score, and until the last ten minutes or so they were in touch. Some of that was Saito keeping the Japanese attack much sharper than last week, to the surprise of the Irish, who went with a weaker team than last week and weren’t all over the breakdown in the same way that they usually are. But some of it was that the Irish were disjointed in attack as well. Now, in my comments on last week’s games I was forgiving of the AB looking disjointed with changes in personnel. I’m going to cut...
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