Up and Under - the Rugby Thread
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The scrum is over here.
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I fear Wales are going to be put to the sword at Twickenham. A poor beginning already with Dede Davi (me neither) makinng a real pig's ear of Hen wlad fy nhadau to start the suffering early. 😡
Despite being Scottish, I have to agree with you
My predictions for the 6 Nations based on this weekend:
First / second France & England.
Third / fourth Ireland & Italy
Fifth / sixth Scotland & Wales
I hope to be proved wrong...
I agree that France should get top of the table. However, I don't think England beating Ireland is a given. Sure, they ran in 6 tries against us but, given our terrible indiscipline and shocking lack of invention, they should have scored more. As Josh Adams showed, the English defence is not 100%.
I agree, but England would have scored another thirty points had they been more careful and not suffered from White Line Fever. Whenever someone is held up over the line I reckon they should go down before the line and lay it back. Ok, 90% of the time.
Btw, anyone else think Maro Itoje has a chance of wearing the #19 shirt this year? Coles and Chessum look very effective.
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It really was a horror show from England but calm and fury in equal measure from Scotland. Set piece superiority counts for little if you have a poor defence and score just two tries from nine visits to the Scot’s 22 while Scotland scored four tries from seven visits. We butchered chances last week against Wales, only Scotland were far, far better and this time it mattered more.
on the ABE principle ... 🤣😂
@Baptist Trainfan I fear you're right.
@sionisais The traffic shouldn't be too bad - kkick-off is at 3:10pm.
@TheOrganist I take your point about the likely result of England v Ireland. You're probably right.
It will also be Maro Itoje’s 100th cap, and his stats are very impressive. A great line out player and tackler, he competes for everything and does get penalised, but for someone who does so much I don’t think excessively. The only reservation I have about him is that I don’t rate him as a carrier. I think he’s too easily tackled and knocked back, possibly because his moves lack deception, possibly because he is double teamed. Anyway I think there are four others who do it better.
Go on Maro, prove me wrong!
Well done Scotland!
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Well done Ireland 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 🇮🇪 ♥️
England on the other hand, played exactly the same way as they did against Wales and Scotland: lots of effort, plenty of opportunities, but even more errors than before! Handling errors, missed tackles, turnovers and key players woefully out of form. No wonder they shipped so many points. Against Ireland, as with France, you need players with a bit of dog. Not strong players, but players who put the wind up the opposition. Yes, a bit of fear. Ben Earl has it but I can’t think of anyone else. We’ll be found lacking against Italy too at this rate.
Two of my colleagues (a husband and wife) were at the match; she'd never been to Cardiff before and said she was looking forward to the singing. She wouldn't have been disappointed! 🙂
Still, France have to play Scotland away and England at home so I expect a grand slam and the only bet is whether Louis Bielle-Biarrey will continue his run of tries in successive games.