Men's Six Nations, 2025. Week Five

Super Saturday and everyone, except Scotland, has something more than pride to play for. Wales and Italy are scraping to avoid the wooden spoon. Although France are in pole position, in theory any of Ireland, England or France can win the tournament. That’s the order in which they play, so they each know what they have to do as they take the field.

The Matches

Italy v Ireland

This was a frustrating match to watch, certainly as a neutral, I suspect even more if you support one of these teams.

Ireland, for most of the game, were poor. They made a lot of handling errors, gave up a lot of penalties and were generally out of sorts. They did click, from time to time, and scored, but they often made hard work of it. That’s despite a red card and two yellow cards given up by Italy that had an impact, and a card right at the end of the game that’s probably going to be red. The resulting penalty was kicked up and then out to end the game, so it didn’t affect anything. But Italian ill-discipline affected them, as did fatigue - some from the time down to 14, but some due to injuries and replacements coming on early. I don’t remember if it was three or four replacements in the first half, but it destroyed any thoughts of tactical replacements due to fatigue, or changing the game.

Italy created chances, more than Ireland in fact, but the player who made the line break was, too often, isolated and unable to pass to a supporting player. Ireland then smothered the attack and… just eased out to a victory.

Italy will rue what could have been, and know that with a little more effort and discipline they could have won this. Ireland will wonder what the future holds, when they can only just beat Wales and Italy. They did win, but look at what France did to each of Wales, Italy and, in deed, Ireland.

Wales v England

This is a match where, as a Wales fan, I’m left rueing what could have been. Somehow Murray didn’t score a try, but on another day he could have had a hat trick. With a different referee, several of England's tries wouldn’t have been scored - a penalty to England for the Welsh front row going up looked a lot more like Genge boring in front, the other side. England consistently closed the gap at the lineout and were never penalised. Wales had a three-on-one overlap and, somehow, conspired not to score a try. The first try from Murray that was disallowed, the TMO said “it’s all good” and Berry kept going and going. I’m biased but it looked like he was looking for reasons to disallow the try, until he found one.

Would that have made a difference? Maybe. England were helped to a cracking start and then that Murray try was disallowed. The belief went out of the crowd, and seemingly the team in that moment. Conversely, England grew in their belief and hammered that home in terms of points.

Wales were frequently outmuscled and, not all the time but too often, kicked errantly, typically too long. But with some points early and a bit of belief, who knows what would have happened? Almost certainly not a 10 try to two hammering.

The Sherratt effect seems to be a dead cat bounce, sadly, although there are some bright lights. Murray looks good, Morgan and Jenkins continued to shine, and when Evans replaced Anscombe, the Welsh attack suddenly appeared to have teeth, although it struggled to convert against a rampant English defence.

England bullied a smaller, greener Welsh side and it will hurt until we get our revenge.

France v Scotland

After two really frustrating matches, this one looked like it was going the same way, especially if you were French.

In the first half, the Scots applied lots of pressure, as did the French, and we saw yellow cards flashed for Ritchie, Mauvaka and Cros. The English and Scottish commentators were convinced Mauvaka should have seen a straight red for a head butt, even a flying head butt! If that was a head butt when he just surged towards White and there was a glancing blow to the chin then rugby really has gone soft. I think a yellow under that protocol, for retaliation with incidental contact with the head is also about right.

Then, much like last week against Ireland, there was a turning point moment, in this case the LBB try after Ntamack stripped the ball from Russell. Suddenly France roared into life in attack, and they could barely put a foot wrong. Their defence, which had already been restricting the Scots, was became smothering and they didn’t score another point.

LBB ended up scoring and so taking the try scoring record for an individual, he extended his record for try involvements - tries plus assists - which was already far higher than the previous record, France broke England’s try scoring record for a single tournament, Kinghorn certainly beat Hogg’s old record for most metres carried in a tournament and took the record for the most carries too.

While Lucu wasn’t as spectacular as last week, he still had a very good game, over both halves. So did Moefana who won POTM. I suspect LBB will win player of the tournament, not only did he break the try scoring record, and assist in several tries, he also made a lot of tackles, with a high success rate, and they were often critical. When you have a winger that scores tries AND assists like he does, you will often accept a so-so tackle completion rate. Some of that is the fact that wings are often making one-on-one tackles in a lot of space, a kick past, a sidestep or whatever and you’re left looking stupid. But some is that you want your wings, at least one, to score tries and you accept them not tackling so well. LBB tackles like a machine, he chases and competes for the high ball well, and scores tries for fun. Arguably the best back three player in the world at the moment.

This was a great match to round out a thrilling championship, and a great way, in the end, for France to claim victory.

Happy Coaches

1. Galthié. Apparently he actually smiled! Who can blame him? In the end, a good victory over Scotland, winning the 6N and in a tough year with three away games. There are issues: discipline, slow first halves and so on, but to the victors go the spoils. What is scary is that this means France have time to improve before 2027.
2. Borthwick. While I think England were helped to their win, they went out and took advantage of the circumstances and produced a good performance. Like Galthié he smiled at the end.
3. Easterby. I was tempted to leave third blank and put Easterby in fourth. I don’t think he’ll be happy, more relieved to have escaped with a win. To say the close a result is only down to the decline of the Irish is unfair to the Italians, but two years ago this wouldn’t have happened. The quality has converged.
4. Quesada. He will rue stupid decisions, leading to cards, and poor support running that meant Ireland could cling on to win this game. He might point to the Irish smashing his players to the point he had to go to the bench early and often too. Whilst it’s disappointing he’s certainly happier than the other two.
5. Townsend. As everyone except England have seen, the French have an extra gear or five. Scotland might have lived with ill-disciplined France, but couldn’t live with them once they turned it on. Townsend's future might be in doubt, but he’s going to be disappointed after a season where Scotland were a serious outsider for the championship and ended up an irrelevant hurdle, slowing the French down.
6. Sherratt. No one wants to see their side, even if it’s just a temporary job, smashed like that.

Looking Forward

France are touring New Zealand. As usual they’ll be taking a weaker squad, because the Top 14 final is basically the week before the first test. It’s hard to imagine them winning in the land of the long white cloud, but France have some scary strength in depth, so who knows.

The British and Irish Lions are touring Australia. That affects the home nations teams to a greater or lesser extent. Australia are certainly better than they looked this time last year. How good is Farrell at putting a team together quickly? How good will the team he selects actually be, if he takes a load of his Irish squad?

England are touring Argentina, which could be exciting for a depleted team.

Ireland are doing a tour of tier two European countries, which I guess gives them time to explore some new players.

Scotland are touring the pacific islands, I can’t find exact details but I’m guessing Fiji and Samoa. They could be weakened by some critical players being in Australia, and this could be interesting.

Wales are touring Japan, probably close to full strength. Wales and Japan are neck and neck in the world standings, Wales will be touring with their new coach. Nervous times await.

Italy are touring South Africa, which, ouch.

In the shorter term, W6N starts next weekend. Can anyone beat England?