Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...