Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

We’ve really got the tone of this year's championship sorted out. Ireland are woeful, Wales, Scotland and Italy (probably in that order, but still tbd) are clearly improved from last year but 12+ months of professionalism is not enough to catch up with 5+ years. France and England (order also tbd but that’s my guess) are still the dominant forces in the NH. Really, before they started, only one match this weekend mattered, Scotland v Italy, but France v Wales will also show a bit more about Welsh progress and resilience - how will they bounce back after the disappointment of the last 60 minutes of last week? Match Reports Ireland v England When England scored after two minutes I was amusing myself working out what the projected final score was if they kept that rate up (135-0 if you’re interested). Obviously that’s unreasonable, but 27-0 at halftime was based off a pretty poor England performance. Conversions were one from five. Penalty kicks for touch were missed - that s on ki...

Wales v England This was not a battle between equals. This was the world number 1 vs the world number 8, and while the points difference on the rankings is of questionable utility and you really can’t compare across the men’s and women’s, if you did that, England's women would be 3 points clear of Ireland and Wales women would be in 14th place… that might be a better indicator of the gulf between them at the moment than first v eighth. So, when for the first 20 minutes Wales dominated England in every aspect of the game, even leading on the scoreboard, that was notable. Wales continued to be competitive at the scrum and breakdown essentially throughout the game, and patches where the asserted their game plan in other areas too, although they were never really for long enough. The difference between the two was mostly the backs, where England have a load of really experienced players, Wales have a few. However, over time, the extra years of professional experience all round showe...

Having set the scene last week, straight into the match reports. Ireland v France This was another game where the weather, the wind to be precise, played a huge part. So did the dominance of the French over the Irish. So did the ref. Hang on, so far this is sounding the same as last week’s write-up involving Ireland! Well some of that is deliberate of course, and while those are the talking points, they’re phrased a bit misleadingly to emphasise the similarities. The wind was probably similar in strength, and really seemed to mess up the French goal kicking at first (I think it was actually just a bad day with the boot for Bourdon), but it had less impact on France overall than Wales because they didn’t rely on their set piece as much as Wales, running the ball from anywhere (more on that later). Overall, certainly in the loose, the French ran riot. It wasn’t only the backs, although they got most of the tries; the French forwards were enjoying running around too. At times, in the...