Women's Six Nations 2025, Week Two

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 taking points through penalties and one unlikely drop goal, not quite at will, but frequently enough that the scoreboard pressure was always there too. In addition, France have definitely improved their discipline and looked a lot more like England smothering Italy last week. Their attack is not yet fully functional but, when it fired, it was irresistible.

Scotland kept playing but were really only in a spoiler role, slowing down the French. They did that, but they need to show more.

Wales v England

This was a weird match. England were certainly the better team for periods and were ruthless whenever they got a scoring opportunity. Really once the Red Roses scored their second try the result wasn’t in doubt. In many periods the English defence was pushing the Welsh back and forcing mistakes with the pressure. There were also a few unforced errors by the Welsh, penalty kicks not finding touch and the like, which is always bad, but against England is terrible.

But that summary would miss things that would have Mitchell tearing his hair out, if he had any. Wales scored first, and that was by forcing mistake after mistake from the English. At half time the penalty count was 4-1. Now, four penalties in a half is not bad, but when your opponents have only conceded one, it’s not great. When one is at the scrum for a second early push, and Wales are actually winning the scrum battle - not every time, but overall - and probably winning the breakdowns too, that’s a big issue.

The Welsh team has a lot of new faces and a brand new coach. They will be working on fixing their errors and, while it’s fair to suggest they’re not good enough at test level, you need to add yet onto that to make it completely honest. There needs to be some forgiveness for a very new team playing a very experienced and much more highly placed one. At the same time, making the English scrum creak, the English defence scramble repeatedly - especially when they attacked out wide - and the way England were poor under the high ball are all positives Lynn can work on. And teams like France, New Zealand and Canada are good enough to exploit. Not part of the plan for England in the build up to a home RWC, with what was their best team on the pitch.

Italy v Ireland

This was a match where both sides promised much but only one delivered on those promises.

There used to be a idea in rugby, back in the days when looking at possession and territory where good indicators for who would win the game, that you could loosely divide the game into ten minute long periods and, in a close game at least, the momentum, possession and territory, usually the scoring would swing back and forth in those periods. In more one-sided games, such as we’ve seen in the W6N in the last few years, that’s not so true M where England, and to a lesser extent France, score at will against the other teams. This game looked quite like one of those games of old, ten minutes with Ireland on top, then ten minutes with Italy on top. Even stevens.

The difference was, when Ireland were on top, they were ruthless, typically scoring a couple of tries, at least in the first half. When Italy were on top, they were slipshod, spilling the ball frequently, but also running away from support players and giving away easy turnovers. Admittedly, in the first ten minute period, Ireland were helped by Italy having received a yellow card in the first minute, but they did it again a bit later.

Like last week, the Italians improved in the second half, a better side would make those adjustments on the fly but at least they can adjust. It’s hard to be sure if the Irish took their foot off the pedal too: they didn’t create as many chances and I think that was down to the improved Italian defensive effort, when they did get through they were pretty ruthless.

Happy Coaches

1. Mignot and Ortiz. There’s still work for Les Bleues to do, particularly in attack, or in consistency, but this was a good win. The lessons about discipline were clearly taken on board, and the result was never in doubt.
2. Mitchell. This was a tough decision but, whilst I was very rude about the English in my summary - deservedly - and they do have some issues he’ll need to think about, on the day they played a full 80 minutes, unlike last week, and scored 11 tries. There’s quite a lot to be happy about.
3. Bemand. The first half performance was great, the second half - whatever the reason, not so much. But a solid win and quite a lot to be happy about.
4. Lynn. A young team with a very new coach had a lot of problems with the number 1 side in the world. But they also had some areas and quite extended periods of the game where they made their opponents look ordinary. There is a long, long way to go, but there are positive signs.
5. Roselli. Italy need to expand their second half adaptations to earlier in the game but the fact that they can do it suggests there’s a good team and they’re willing to listen and adjust. They need to brush up on their core skills, but Ireland put them under a lot of pressure, as did England, Scotland and Wales will be an interesting matchup.
6. Easson. Scotland did more to contain France than Wales did to contain England, and both underdogs scored two tries. So why is Easson under Lynn? Why under Roselli? Scotland barely threatened, outside of their two tries, while Wales and Italy looked they were actually playing the game. Wales may not have finished the chances they created, Italy fumbled or got turned over a lot, but they did create them, Scotland didn’t and that’s not good.

Looking Ahead

There is a rest week next week.

1. Wales are being sacrificed to Les Bleues. While I hope to see improvements from the Welsh, I can’t see them winning this one, especially away.
2. Ireland are hosting England. Ireland struggled against France when they had 15 women on the pitch, unless England have players sent off, this is going to a be a hard afternoon at the office.
3. Scotland host Italy. Neither side has really impressed me so far, but Scotland just edge it and, at home, should defeat Italy. That said, if Roselli has sorted out the Italian defensive adjustments and the Scottish pressure is not as good as the Irish you can see a route for an away win.