RBS Six Nations

RBS Six Nations

Saturday , February 9
Scotland vs Italy    08.30 Houston Time
France vs Wales    11.00am Houston

Sunday , February 10
Ireland vs England  09.00am Houston

Scotland v Italy
An outstanding first round of the Six Nations climaxed in Rome last Sunday as Italy stunned France. This week they look to win again, at Murrayfield.
Long associated with the Wooden Spoon decider, this year sees an unusual situation whereby the Azzurri are hunting back-to-back victories.

France v Wales
Saturday's Six Nations clash at the Stade de France has turned into a must-win clash for both the hosts and the defending champions. 

Ireland v England
Having both picked up victories in Round One, the clash between Ireland and England is being viewed as a premature Six Nations title decider.



Great article from the Roar....an Aussie rugby mag online.

Down at Hobart to watch the Rebels v  Waratahs friendly, I had a conversation  with a rugby tragic who comes from the UK  and has been in Australia for some time.

‘I love your columns,’ he told me, ‘but you  do seem to have it in for British rugby. Why  is that?’

I agreed with him that I have been critical  of British rugby, on and off the field of play,  for decades. Sometimes, though, as in  2003 I have been extremely generous to  what I considered to be one of the great  rugby teams in the history of the game, Sir  Clive Woodward’s Rugby World Champion  England side.

But in general, let’s be honest, virtually all  the time I have been critical. And I  explained why to my Hobart friend. To  begin with, England, in particular, have  played terribly boring rugby, slow,  plodding, unnecessarily antagonistic and  based around an incessant kicking game.

I also pointed out that off the field, England  or its pretentiously named union The Rugby  Football Union (why not the England Rugby  Union for goodness sake?) has opposed  every attempt from Australia and New  Zealand to make the rugby football game  just a rugby game, a skilful, athletic, fast,  running and handling game where scoring  tries are the object of the exercise rather  than kicking goals.

In 1895 The rugby union stalwarts ensured  that the northern counties were booted out  of the rugby game because players there,  mainly miners and factory workers, wanted  to be paid during those periods when they  were off work because of rugby injuries.

There was plenty of money in the game to  allow this.

But the public school old boys who lived in  London, especially those from Rugby  School, killed off the initiative on the  grounds that professionalism would corrupt  the Corinthian ideals of the rugby game.  This was and is a nonsense.

The Rugby School Old Boys were  determined to keep the game as an enclave  for the upper middle classes (their class)  and even set up a bogus commission in that  year to establish the nonsense that William  Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with  it at Rugby School in 1823. This supposed  event the commission argued gave the old  Rugbeians a sort of property and  intellectual rights over the game.

It did not matter that Thomas Hughes, the  venerable author of Tom Brown’s School  Days, told the commission that Jem Mace  was the first to run forward with the ball at  Rugby School in the 1840s and that Webb  Ellis was actually a cricketer at school.

The Rugby Football Union since the 1890s  has opposed every attempted improvement  in the game, including in recent years a  rejection of the ELVs rules which would  have created only three penalties rather  than the current 30 in the ruck and mauls.

The worst aspect of all this is that this  blinkered view saw rugby as a game of set  pieces, kicking (football rugby) and the  occasional run and try. Stephen Jones  rather memorably endorsed this attitude by  stating that the perfect rugby match was  one played in mud with a 9 – 6 scoreline!

In New Zealand and Australia, the set  pieces are seen as a way of starting play, a  means to an end not an end in themselves.  And the fastball-in-hand game has  generally been seen in these parts as the  ideal way of playing the game, and the best  way to win matches.

All this brings us in a round-about way back  to England’s performance against Scotland  in last weekend’s Six Nations match at  Twickenham. And in short, England played  as if they were the All Blacks in white kit.  This is, of course, the highest praise that  can be given right now to a rugby team.

Owen Farrell, the young flyhalf, kicked  twice in the match in general play, the first  time 26 minutes into play. For the rest he  set up attacks with a fine variety of passes,  pop-up, held-back passes and one gem of a  long floating pass to an unmarked player  out wide.

England’s set pieces were strong. The  forwards were mobile and hunted as a  pack. And they cleared the ball out from  the rucks and mauls with extreme speed.  And when they did Ben Youngs, the  halfback, cleared straight away.

There is a 5-second rule in place now for  clearing a ball lying at the back of the ruck.  Youngs never waited even a second.

As soon as the ball was clear, he got it  away. The result was that England’s attacks  were wave after wave of probing runs,  sometimes the forwards and then the  outside backs. It was exciting, thrilling  stuff.

And for someone who has believed that this  sort of play is unattainable for England  sides, except on rare occasions, it was  instructive to see how effective it was for  England.

The sign of a side on the up is that new  players can come in and make a mark. I’d  never heard of Bill Twelvetrees, the inside  centre. But he was outstanding in making  breaks, passing and setting up rucks to  maintain the momentum of the England  attacks.

This is the second successive time that this  England team has played a splendid, real  rugby match. Last year England monstered  the All Blacks, again at Twickenham, in a  manner that rarely happens to the New  Zealanders.

Both these impressive victories by England,  against the All Blacks and against Scotland,  were at their Twickenham fortress. The  next test of England’s willingness to play  real rugby comes at the weekend at Dublin  against Ireland.

Ireland were excellent against a Wales side  that has lost all its form since the beginning  of 2012 when they were the Grand Slam  victors. The Irish loose forwards were  particularly impressive.

And Brian O’Driscoll was back to his magical  best, even playing scrum half when the  Ireland half was in the sin bin.

England’s test is to have the courage to  play its ball-in-hand game away from  home. And against quicker, better and  more fiery side than Scotland  (disappointingly) proved to be.

I made the fearless prediction that France  would win the 2013 Six Nations  tournament. I was careful to ensure that I  did not predict a Grand Slam for them,  though.

As it happened, they were beaten by an  Italian side that ran brilliantly from broken  play. And came back from being behind to  surge to a well-deserved, if unexpected,  victory.

The French players looked cumbersome,  physically and mentally. Coach St Andre  has promised that his team will not play  was poorly again in the tournament.

Well, the test is on the field rather than  words from the coach. France have the  chance of partial redemption in Paris  against Wales.

Italy travel to Murrayfield to continue their  quest of successive Six Nations victories  against Scotland.

But the match of the round is Ireland v  England, and its pointers to the how the  British and Irish Lions might play in their  series in June against the Wallabies.