6 Nations - the best Irish team in a generation!

 

 (picture http://bit.ly/1EGN31O)

The 6 Nations 2015 wrapped up with a fantastic advert for the game. Ireland squeaked in with a back to back 6 Nations title, our first since 1949. We have the best rugby team in a generation. The ladies joined the party too, smashing Scotland 70-3, and claiming their second title in 3 years. So it was a good weekend for rugby, a good weekend for Irish rugby – the only thing it wasn’t good for was your heart!

I endured every minute of the three games on the trot, watching bravely on in spite of an imminent massive coronary, coping with the mood swings, making every tackle, bursting for every line. Spare a thought for Welsh and English hearts too.

Wales Italy was up first, and the Italians decided they wanted to play early on -  you knew Wales were going to come back but you felt confident that they wouldn’t do too much damage. That confidence evaporated as Wales kicked into gear in the second half, and it was raining tries, this was it, Wales had done it, we had too much work to do.

Then Scotland v Ireland, a bit jittery early on, especially when Scotland got their try, but the supreme competency of the Irish team, their excellence of execution, settled my nerves as they steadily built up a formidable lead. There were a few tries left behind, a few errant penalties, but on the whole, we did as much as we could. There were towering performances from O’Mahoney, Heaslip and especially, O’Brien, Healy and O’Connell were immense, Sexton and Murray back on song, tough to single anyone out, but this isn’t a team of superstars, this victory, and the title, was built on hard work.

So going into the final match, my confidence and sprits were up again, France had the best defence in the competition, they’d never ship a 26 point victory. With a try and conversion for England in the first two minutes, I was plunged back into the depths of despair, France hadn’t turned up, it was going to be an English rout! How very French of the French to then decide they did actually want to play, and play really well, and with sumptuous running lines, inch perfect passes, they quickly went into the lead. Although, in heart stopping fashion, the French wing  Nakaitaci waited until literally the last millisecond to ground the ball before he ran out of play. England are a better team than France, and they fought back building up a lead – oh god they’re going to win! – but  the French keep on chipping back with tries of their own – whew! Allez Les Bleus! After 80 minutes of hammering away at each other, with England on the French line pressing for that last try, they gave away a penalty – game over – we’ve won! But France of course still have to run the ball, as a torrent of bad language erupts in every house in Ireland- Kick it out! KICK THE %$£ING THING OUT!

Very hard for Wales and England to take, but we won the title with the best defence, and by taking the points when we could in every game.

A final word for the generosity of the Scots in letting the Irish fans stay in Murrayfield to watch the final match, and to be on hand ofr the presentation of the cup.

Saturday, March 21
Italy 20 - 61 Wales    12:30
Scotland 10 - 40 Ireland    14:30
England 55 - 35 France    17:00

Ireland for the Championship! But then what else would I say...

The Six Nations all comes down to the last ‘Super Saturday’ with all the teams still in with a say on the final winner. England, Ireland and Wales have three wins each, so one of them should win it, but if France, Italy or Scotland have an awful or brilliant day, that will affect their chances. And it’s not totally impossible that Italy, Scotalnd and France could win – then France could win on points difference! Quelle horreur! That’s probably unlikely though…

Italy kick things off when they welcome Wales to Rome in the early kick off. The Italians are missing Sergio Parisse,  which is a massive blow to them, as he IS Italy. Wales might struggle a bit in the scrum, but apart from that they will be itching and able to inflict a big defeat on Italy. The Italians have conceded and average of 30 points a game, Wales just 18. On average then, Wales will win by 12, on the generous side by 30-40, but Italy at home won’t want to lose by much.

Ireland have made a few key changes for Scotland, with Cian Healy and Luke Fitzgerald starting for the first time. I think Joe Schmidt is planning for Ireland to bust some moves this weekend. I reckon we need to beat the Scots by 20 points, that should see us home safely. Who’d be a Scottish fan, their team promises often, but rarely delivers, and they have Ireland arriving hoping to beat a large victory out of them. But their respective coaches go way way back to New Zealand together, they know each other inside out, and Scotland will be desperate to avoid the ‘Whitewash wooden Spoon’ their speciality in recent years. I’d say we’re going to win, by about 20 points, although we’ll only nail it in the last 10 minutes.

Finally, France travel to Twickenham to resume their centuries old sparring with Les Rosboefs. England will know exactly what they need to claim the championship by that stage.  France were poor enough against Italy, while England struggled to put the Scots away. Out of all the teams, the French have the potential to do the most damage, and concede the most abjest of defeats. Their defence is the best in the competiton, as good as Irelands, so while England will toil, and win, they won’t do it by more than Ireland beat Scotland.

So the net effect, then is that the Championship is going to be Origin Green!

Six Nations
Saturday, March 21
Italy vs Wales    12:30
Scotland vs Ireland    14:30
England vs France    17:00

The last weekend of the 6 Nations is going to be a total bun fight!

 

Saturdays match against Wales didn’t disappoint in terms of intensity, even if we didn’t get the result we wanted. The Pope is calling for an investigation after Joe Schmidt’s canonisation came through so fast – ‘But you only won 10 in a row!’. This time it was Wales whose defense and nerve  that held, who got the lucky breaks and the tight decisions. Our lineout, which had been thing a thing of beauty, failed a number of times – the Welsh would have to have been lifting Devin Toner for him to catch it where Rory Best was throwing it. Sexton had an off game, we dropped the ball, we gave it our all but it wasn’t just clicking for us. Hats off to Wales for a very hard earned victory. We now go down to an absolute bun fight for the last weekend of matches.

With the Championship wide open again, England  had a chance to rack up a big score against Scotland and set themselves up nicely for the last match. They were a bit too keen, and dominated Scotland everywhere except for the scoreboard. It looked like it was going to be a cricket score after four minutes, but Scotland played the second 20 minutes of the first half as well as they’ve played all year, and went in with a lead at half time. England were never going to lose it, but they’ll be kicking themselves for not winning by more.

Finally, Italy and France wrapped up the weekend with a shambolic match, no shape or structure for either team, and lacking in the most basic of playing skills.  That’s fine for Italy, who have a handful of decent players (though not a single flu half), but France have no excuses.  It ended up with a big French win, but that scoreline flattered them.

Six Nations
Saturday, March 14
Wales 23 - 16 Ireland    14:30
England 25 - 13 Scotland    17:00
Sunday, March 15
Italy 0 - 29 France    15:00

Ireland, England, France. Believe!

 

 Jonny Sexton (picture http://bit.ly/1L5VGt0)

After a two week break, the 6 Nations comes roaring back into life with a rip snorting, hum dingering ( and other assorted hyperbole) match as Wales welcome Ireland to the Millennium Stadium! The whole match is an exclamation mark, if our match against England was the biggest thing since sliced bread, well this is bigger. Ireland are the only unbeaten team left in it now, and when you think that between them Wales and Ireland have won 6 of the last ten 6 Nations championships, there’s a reasonable chance that this match will set one of the teams on the way to another championship.

We have Jonny Sexton, and Jamie Heaslip back, while Wales have a full contingent to pick from too. It’s Kiwi coach v Kiwi coach. Warren Gatland has laid his challenge out already. His team was out on Wednesday, and his tactics haven’t changed since Wales started winning more than they lost. It revolves mainly around huge ball carries busting their way up the field. Meanwhile, Joe Schmidt is more coy, his tactics seem to vary from game to game, which makes it much harder  for the opposition to plan for. This is going to be like a game of chess – albeit a game of chess played by large men trying to murder each other! I think Ireland have the edge, even though Wales have home advantage, because Schmidt’s tactics are better than Gatland’s, and because the Irish team is probably the most composed team in the world now under pressure. So a win for Ireland!

England have to try and get back on the horse after losing last weekend – they have to hope Ireland lose, and rack up a big score against Scotland to keep themselves in contention. The Scots meanwhile will still be sick after their loss to Italy, looking for their first win, and really do they ever need much motivation when they are playing England? Hard to see anything else but a convincing England victory though.

Finally, the French travel to Rome, their season pretty well a disaster already.  Philippe St Andre has made 8 changes for this match, continuing his revolving door selection policy. You only have to have an impressive 10 minute spell in a top 14 match and you could play for France! Even with St Andre in charge, you could still France winning with the class of the players selected, but with Italy on a high after beating Scotland, anything could happen!

Six Nations
Saturday, March 14
Wales vs Ireland    14:30
England vs Scotland    17:00
Sunday, March 15
Italy vs France    15:00

Sweet satisfaction as Ireland beat England!

 Joe Schmidt (picture http://bit.ly/1aIjTW4)

Sundays win over England is easily one of the most satisfying wins of recent years. There was France in Paris last year, there was South Africa and Australia in the Autumn, but this was rich in flavour, with notes of yeah boy! We seemed to cope pretty easily with everything England had to throw at us, and it was them that were struggling to make ground or play with any fluency. There was a mighty shift from the loose forwards, especially the young guns Murphy and O’Donnell, epic performances from O’Connell and Best, MOTM for Henshaw, and brilliant from Murray and Zebo. But the MC was Jonny Sexton, kicking out of his skin, controlling and directing the game, and putting in some mean tackling of his own. Let’s face it, Ireland have the best coach in the world now in Joe Schmidt.  England just wilted under the pressure, and with a few exceptions, mainly Billy Vunipola and Alex Goode at the back, they were out of ideas. They are missing players, put Courney Walsh, Mike Brown and Manu Tuallagi back in and they’d be a lot more competitive, but that’s for a another day, for now it’s Ireland s turn to savour a sweet, sweet victory.

And Ireland’s ladies also beat England, what a weekend!

Scotland will up in the Hague for committing war crimes against a perfectly innocent win against Italy. They tortured the poor win, and their fans, until it expired in the last minute of the game – that after leading 10 nil after 10 minutes. It was easily their worse performance of the tournament,, and while Italy weren’t exactly in scintillating form themselves, they at least made less mistakes.

Wales played out a smart win in Paris, keeping it tight and strangling the life out of the French. France played like they’d been introduced to each other for the first time shortly before kick off. I was going to say that I was surprised with how easily, Wales beat France, but really, nothing is surprising about France anymore. All set up perfectly now for the Millenium stadium in two weeks!

Six Nations
Saturday, February 28
Scotland 19 - 22 Italy    14:30
France 13 - 20 Wales    17:00
Sunday, March 01
Ireland 19 - 9 England    15:00

Ireland versus England is going to be totally epic!

 

 Jordi Murphy ( Picture http://bit.ly/181Rb0s )

Sundays match is building up to be Ireland’s biggest match in years. We always want to beat England, sure we wanted to beat France, but we want to BEAT England! This is match 3 for everybody, the last number of 6 Nations have been decided on points, slams are pretty rare things these days, so the loser on Sunday may well still go on to win the whole thing. But it’s the two form teams meeting, and it does have the winner takes all cup final feel to it.  England were the only side we lost to last year, when they had home advantage, so this is a real test for where we are now, just how good are we?  We’ve lost Jamie Heaslip, through an act of French thuggery, but Jordi Murphy did a good job against Italy, and no doubt he’s going to step up again, while England are without Mike Brown. This is like chess, how we take the size of the English out of it, passion won’t be an issue for us, but it’s going to interesting to see what tactics Joe Schmidt has to bring to give us the edge. Against France, we played where we want to on the pitch, kept them in their half, and let them make the mistakes, will be we able to contain England like that?  Will our scrum hold out? I for one cannot wait, I think it’s going to be epic, if we can beat physically big sides like France, Australia and South Africa, we can beat England, I think we will, and it never hurts that hard to beat them does it?

Elsewhere, again, a feast of rugby. It’s giant v Goliath as France and Wales square up in
Paris. The French have made a few strangely common sense selections, going with Parra, and bringing a bit more flair into the back line, which give you concern for the health of coach Philippe St Andre. Are you feeling OK Philippe, do you need a lie down? France’s problem for number of years has not been who you pick, but who do you leave out? Leaving out the most talented players seems to have been the most favourable option recently, but I like the look of this French side. I don’t think Wales will physically dominate France, and if they couldn’t contain Scotland very well, good luck against the likes of Fofana, Dulin et al! So France for me.

Finally Scotland welcome Italy to Murrayfield for the annual wooden spoon competition. Italy will be without prop inspirational Martin Castrogiovani won’t be playing after his friends dog bit his nose last weekend, and Scotland lose fly half Finn Russell to a harsh two week suspension.  I reckon this is going to be a watershed match for Scotland, they’ll win and win well.

Six Nations
Saturday, February 28
Scotland vs Italy    14:30
France vs Wales    17:00
Sunday, March 01
Ireland vs England    15:00

Ireland and England on course for collision

 

Sean O'Brien ( picture http://bit.ly/1CwX9kP)

Rugby’s a cruel game, England don’t score a try against Italy which they don’t even need, and it’s given, and Scotland score a wonder try against Wales, and it isn’t given.

Ireland comfortably handled everything that France threw at them, on Saturday afternoon, conceding just one try and some long range penalties to keep their unbeaten run going. Some people think we should have won better, scored tries – I’d take that any day over France, a one point victory with a blind biased ref would have done nicely too, thank you very much.  Henshaw, Toner, O’Connell, Payne and O’Brien did most of the tackling, a great shift from O’Brien, playing the full 80 minutes after playing 40 minutes in the last year. And Sexton was superb, out for 3 months but sharp as ever, putting the balls on a sixpence with his kicks. What a brutal match though, the state of Sexton’s and O’Connell’s faces was terrible. France were lucky not to have lost by more, Pape’s yellow card could easily have been a red. And Rory Best is due for a long spell on Joe Schmidt bold step after that trip.

England racked up a good score against Italy, it wasn’t that impressive though, they let in three tries, and had a dodgy one awarded themselves. But Ireland didn’t look too flash against Italy either, and they got a better winning margin they we did.  George Ford is superb for England though, and our match against them could easily decide the championship.

Finally, Wales got their campaign off the mark with a battling victory over Scotland. There was a bit of controversy as the Scots had what seemed like a perfectly good try disallowed. But they’ve made it clear that a trip to Murrayfield is not for the faint hearted anymore, and with a bit more composure they could have won that even with a try disallowed.

The U20’s racked up a great win over the French, probably the best match I watched this weekend, and the ladies lost out in a close contest in Ashbourne.

Six Nations
Saturday, February 14
England 47 - 17 Italy    14:30
Ireland 18 - 11 France    17:00
Sunday, February 15
Scotland 23 - 26 Wales    15:00

Irlande, England and Scotland with the wins this weekend!

 

Jonny Sexton (picture  http://bit.ly/1Eh1YhC )

For Ireland and France, things are about to get real on Saturday. You want to beat every team you play, but there are teams you really, REALLY don’t want to lose to as well, and that’s the category that France fall into. Les Bleus have been the source of much heartache for Ireland over the years, Exhibit A would be Vincent Clerk’s last minute – probably after the last minute – try in the inaugural 6 Nations match at Croke Park. Talk about spoiling the party, we were supposed to win the 6 Nations that year and all! And that was the year of the 2007 World Cup, when things went pear shaped with a capital P, and the rot was started by the French! Not to get too carried away, but even 8 years later we still owe them one. Our fly half Jonny Sexton is now one the best paid players in France ( known by his teammates as Jonny Vacances for the amount of time he’s out injured), and we also have Jamie Heaslip and Sean O’Brien back, and Cian Healy on the bench. Who knows what the French will bring, they didn’t show too much last week, neither did we, but I think this weekend it’ll all come right for Ireland with a decent win!

England will play Italy, they have an unchanged team, and will be expecting a big win, especially at home. A big win is important because the 6N has been decided by points the last two years. Italy, aren’t great, but you have to break them down first, so I think England will win well, but get quite frustrated early on.

Finally, Wales drag their sorry arses to Scotland to hopefully right some of the wrongs from last weekend. This one could be really interesting, Wales will be busting a gut to get their show on the road, against a very competitive Scottish team. I’m going to go with Scotland and home advantage.

Also, don’t forget about the rest of the rugby that’s on ,  where Ireland Under-20 and Women's teams host France at Dubarry Park and Ashbourne respectively. The U20’s match will be live on RTE 2, and the women’s match done as a stream off the website. Going to try and make the ladies match if I can.

Six Nations
Saturday, February 14
England vs Italy    14:30
Ireland vs France    17:00
Sunday, February 15
Scotland vs Wales    15:00

Ireland get the job done in the end!

 

 Robbie Henshaw (picture http://bit.ly/1M3kwrm)

The 6 Nations 2015 kicked off with a bang, with a tense physical match in Wales. Wales won the first half, and then England came roaring back to claim the spoils. Wales got beaten up basically, by an ultra physical English pack – I’ve heard they are the biggest pack in the tournament, and it certainly looked like it. Behind them George Ford pulled the strings perfectly, and the English backline looked a lot sharper than their Welsh counterparts. When Wales don’t smash other teams early on, they seem to come to a halt, they were certainly out of ideas in the last 20 minutes.

Itreland didn’t exactly turn on the style but they put Italy away pretty easily in the end. Ireland had better ideas, but Italy’s defence hung in there, until a yellow card turned the match. I thought Tommy O’Donnell played really well, second most tackles behind Henshaw, while Jordi Murphy had the most carries, just behind busy man Robbie Henshaw. Zebo looked the most likely to crack things open, and Madigan added some good touches in attack. Italy weren’t that great though, discipline is still an issue, and some basic skills like lineouts and scrums. Now that’s over Ireland are going to have to really step up next week.

Finally, Scotland put in a hard battling performance to keep France in their sights the whole match. Finn Russell played really well, and their physicality is second to none. Hard to say how good France are, but they have an amazing depth of talent, let’s hope they don’t show it in Dublin!

So after the first weekend:

England were the most impressive, and look like the team to beat
Scotland played much better than everyone thought
France and Ireland won but played within themselves
Wales look the most peed off
Italy looked like the worst team

Six Nations
Friday, February 06
Wales 16 - 21 England    20:05
Saturday, February 07
Italy 3 - 26 Ireland    14:30
France 15 - 8 Scotland    17:00

The 6 Nations is about to kick off, and about feckin' time!

The 6 Nations kicks off this weekend, and about fekkin’ time, it seems to have taken forever to get going!

Ireland will be taking on Italy, the only surprise the inclusion of Ian Keatley at 10. Not that he’s not due a start, but it leaves the best place kicker in the team, Ian Madigan on the bench. Let’s trust in Joe though. Apart from that the team fairly picks itself, and  I think Peter O’Mahoney and Paul O’Connell will bring the physicality that was missing for the Wolfhounds last weekend. The Italians are always tricky at home, but we should get through this fine.

The tournament opens up with Wales v England. Yes please!  This is the match of the weekend, Wales have a settled team, are always more than up for the English, and will be bayed on by an 80 000 strong Welsh crowd. And England has a good team, big strong guys, only held back as a team by a list of injuries as long as your arm, and by a bit of uncertainty as to how to use that backline. It’ll be all out war, and Wales should shade it.

Finally, Scotland will travel to Paris to take on the French. The French have enough players and talent to enter two teams in the tournament, and come first and second, but, for their amusement, they normally like to come third or fourth. Scotland are building a decent team around the success of Glasgow, they have a good coach now, and some decent depth, but will still struggle to get a result away in an intimidating place like Paris.

RBS Six Nations
Friday , February 6
Wales vs England    20:05
Saturday , February 7
Italy vs Ireland    14:30
France vs Scotland    17:00