Women's Six Nations 2025, Week 1

The biggest question, the perennial question of recent times, is can anyone beat England?

But, that’s not the only question.

At last year’s WXV Ireland were the surprise package. Did they flatter to deceive as other teams blooded new combinations before the World Cup later this year or was it a real improvement? Whilst I have a lot of sympathy for Cunningham, who paid the price for some terrible off-field behaviour by the WRU and the uncertainty that sewed throughout the squad, we have a new Welsh coach, literally hot off last week's PWR victory, and a fresh team. How will the Welsh Women go? The Italians also have a new coach, although not quite as minty fresh as Sean Lynn.

The Matches

Ireland v France

This was a game with a lot of effort and good moments, but a lot of inaccuracies. France will rue the penalties, and particularly the red card, that they gave away. These conspired to keep the Irish close for longer than they probably deserved. Equally, the Irish will look at their handling errors and wonder what might have been. Between knocks on and turnovers they blew chance after chance. A number of those could be chalked up to French defensive pressure, absolutely, but some just looked like Irish inaccuracy.

All the French penalties gave the Irish forwards a chance to practice their driving mauls, and score some good tries. Everyone else will have to be careful of this. They seemed to struggle in every other area though.

The French weren’t completely dominant with the ball, especially when down to 14, but they scored through their forwards, their backs, in close and out on the wings. A much more rounded performance and something to build on. The Irish may be closer than last year, but they’re still not up with the French.

Scotland v Wales

This was a game where, like so many others, the story ultimately comes down to taking your chances. Scotland had two tries chalked off for obstruction. Wales had a scoring opportunity taken away for the softest high tackle I’ve seen in a long time (I admit to bias, but I’ve seen them given as rugby incidents looking like that).

Wales struggled to get out of their half for large parts of the game, but tackled like Edwards is their defence coach, although with less control and a lot of high tackles, eventually leading to the Welsh 8 seeing red for a second yellow card.

However, on those occasions when Wales got into the Scottish 22 and the TMO didn’t call them back, they took points, typically in sevens, nearly every time. I don’t have a stat for how often the Scots entered the Welsh 22, but I’m reasonably sure there were more Welsh 5m scrums thanks to Scottish knock ons than Welsh entries, Jas Joyce might have had more turnovers than Welsh entries - she had three by halftime!

Scotland also lost a player to a red card, driving her weight into the leg with no mitigation, but this news seemed to galvanise the Scots.

The Welsh propensity to leak penalties came back to bite them, as they lost by three points. There’s a lot to work on, but with a head coach a week into the job, a decent start and some good signs.

England v Italy

When describing the first half, women against girls doesn’t have the same connotations as men against boys. This isn’t the space to discuss why. But if you take the connotations of the later and apply it to the more apt denotations of the former, it probably describes the match pretty well.

England went with what can probably be fairly described as an experimental side. A fly half winning her first cap, a prop playing on the wrong side of the scrum, a full back winning her second cap and so on. There were familiar faces too, but a lot of fresh ones.

Despite that, England were completely dominant at scrum time, largely dominant on both sides of the lineout, physically on top at the breakdown and it was just as one way as it sounds. Italy did win a few lineouts on their throw, and win some breakdown penalties, but it was more a case of stemming the tide than a structured, effective defence.

When Italy got a chance they were capable of applying pressure, forcing the English into making mistakes and, eventually, scoring. It took three attempts but it was a nicely worked try. The difference between the teams was evident when England, if not for a knock on over the line, would have scored a try, essentially from the kick off.

For the second half, this pretty much all changed. Italy played with increased confidence and better field position. At the same time, England lost their shape and precision - even when they had the ball in good positions, and they did a few times, they would throw a bad pass, give away a penalty or similar and get driven back. For over 30 minutes England didn’t look like scoring, Italy looked unlucky on several occasions. When England did cross the try line it was called back for a clear forward pass. It took until the 78th minute for the scoreboard to actually change, 5-0 in the second half is not good enough.

Happy Coaches

1. Mignot and Ortiz. About four months ago Ireland beat New Zealand. France struggled with their discipline and when down a player but ran out comfortable winners away against a good team. Job done.
2. Mitchell. The first half should have been pleasing for the coach. A young and experimental team, and 33-5 up. Then being lucky to win the second 5-0. Italy will take a lot from that, Mitchell will not be happy.
3. Lynn. He only had five days with the team before they played and, although they had a number of things they need to work on, there were a lot of positives for Wales. Happy coach.
4. Easson. Yes Scotland won, but they had a terrible conversion rate for their chances. There’s as much, if not more for the Scots to work on as the Welsh.
5. Roselli. The Italian second half was great and lifted Roselli off the bottom.
6. Bemand. The Irish promised so much and failed to deliver.

Looking Forward

• France v Scotland. Hard to see France letting Scotland camp in their 22 like the Welsh did, although we need to see their discipline improve. France win.
• Wales v England. Wales could really have done without this as their second match. Their defence was stalwart against Scotland. If the England of the second half turn up, Wales could win, but I expect the Red Roses to win again.
• Italy v Ireland. This is the match that’s hard to call. Italy were rather smothered by England, but showed flashes and, during the second half at least, contained the Red Roses. Ireland only really stayed close to the French while they were in numerical and disciplinary problems, as soon as they started playing to the referee a bit better it was all over. With not much confidence I’m going to tip Italy at home.