Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

This should be a weekend of buildup for the big showdown and jockeying for final positions. But the rugby gods are fickle, and several of these matches have wider ramifications, France and Italy face each other again in Pool D of the RWC for example, in August, so there are a lot of subplots. The Matches Italy v France Sometimes clichés exist for a reason. “It was a game of two halves,” may be a cliché, but sometimes it’s just accurate. In the first half we saw 33 points, in the second half only 8 until the last five minutes when the Italians were chasing the game and conceded two soft tries. In the whole first half Italy conceded only two penalties, they’d conceded twice as many in the first ten minutes of the second half, and whilst you wouldn’t say that they were profligate, there was a steady trickle of Italian penalties throughout the half, I think 10 in total. In the first half Italy had a million lineouts (I think it was 16), won them all, routinely took that into a driving mau...

This week Scotland and Wales are the sacrificial lambs, Ireland visit Italy for the competitive match of the weekend. The Matches France v Scotland If you only look at the final score you might think ☑️ job done by France, next please. And, at the very highest level, that’s fair. France scored four tries, kept Scotland to two, one after the clock had gone red, and kept the scoreboard moving with penalties and a drop goal as well. But the French coaches will not be completely happy. Les Bleues dropped try-scoring chances like a drunk trying to pick up a €1 coin when they can’t stand unaided. Three of their tries came in a ten minute period when everything clicked for them and the Scots just couldn’t live with them. For the rest of the match, the Scots might have been hanging on by their fingertips, but they essentially denied the French attempts to score tries, or forced them into silly mistakes. On the plus side, the French continued to dominate territory and possession and were tak...