1. How much longer can we ignore claims for relegation/promotion?
At the bottom end of the table Italy rolled over and let Wales walk all over them on Saturday. That’s not to detract from very good and accurate performance from Wales that would have put most nations to the sword, but as Italy had nothing to play for, they clearly didn’t have the fire to make the win hard for the Welsh.
If they needed a win to stay in the elite competition, then we may have seen a different mind-set from the Azzurri not only on Saturday, but also over the whole Championship.
If one team could be good enough to challenge Italy, then it is Georgia. 52,000 turned out for their win over Romania at the weekend as they wrapped up the European Nations Cup. Of course, they would likely struggle against the top nations too – but isn’t it time we found out?
2. England’s best could be yet to come
The biggest fear for the other five nations in the Championship is that England rarely left second gear to win their Grand Slam. They were the best side over the course of the tournament and the cream tends to rise to the top but actually how good were they?
There was the stuttering start at Murrayfield, 40 minutes of indiscipline in Rome, a workmanlike victory over Ireland, a near capitulation against Wales and an error strewn display against a very average French team.
The way England have cruised to the title is worrying for the other nations that seem to be a bit stuck in their ways, whereas England – mainly because they had to, after the World Cup debacle – seem have freshened things up.
3. North rides again
George North has come in for a fair bit of criticism in the last year for his performances at both club and international level but over the course of a Championship into which he has grown game by game, his reputation as one of world rugby’s deadliest finishers has safely been restored.
This was typified by his try on Saturday. Starting inside his own half, North scorched through the Italian defence and then produced a side step that no man his size should be able to execute without toppling over like a fallen giant.
It was a man-of-the-match performance that will have silenced many doubters. The question now is whether he can fit back into Northampton’s slightly different style.
4. Jekyll and Hyde remake to be set in Scotland
Scotland showed signs of why there is renewed hope for them in the long term on Saturday, but yet again too often they shot themselves in the foot and flattered to deceive.
Stuart Hogg set the tournament alight with a breathtaking try as he returned a wayward touch finder from near the halfway line, whilst Richie Gray’s try was the perfect example of how Scotland have grown as a team as they demonstrated patience and accuracy in their finishing.
In reality, though, the scoreline probably wasn’t a fair reflection of the game. Ireland dominated the first half and but for Hogg’s moment of magic, would probably have shut out their Celtic counterparts.
80% of the first half was played in the Scottish half as they allowed Ireland to dominate them physically and gain territory with ease. Scotland are certainly on the up but it seems that old habits die hard.
5. Moriarty masterminds Welsh win
With the cold bloodedness of his namesake in the Sherlock Holmes tales, Ross Moriarty was the pivotal character in the plot to take down Italy on Saturday. An early injury to Justin Tipuric allowed the Gloucester back-rower to enter the fray and he proceeded to dismantle the Italian pack.
Seen as an understudy to the understudies to the Welsh back row for a while now, Moriarty sought his opportunity and took it gleefully with both hands.
At only the age of 21 he showed some trademark lung-busting carries and picked up two tries to boot. A genuine alternative the established quartet of Welsh back rowers, Moriarty may now start hunting for a contract with one of the regions to prove his commitment to the Welsh national set-up.
6. Talent pool runs deep in the Northern Hemisphere
The northern hemisphere may be lagging behind their SANZAR counterparts in style of play and excitement levels, but there is no doubt that there is an embarrassment of riches in raw talent across the Six Nations and every team can lay claim to having at least a couple of gems in their ranks.
Maro Itoje and George Kruis are taking the headlines for the younger protagonists of course, but teams like France and Scotland – serial underachievers in the Six Nations – can take solace in the fact that they have age and time on their side. Gael Fickou, Wesley Fofana and Virimi Vakatawa could form an extremely lethal combination if only they are played in their correct positions and the French find something that resembles a game plan.
Scotland, too, have unearthed Duncan Taylor and WP Nel as long term internationals and if they can add a genuine Number 8 to their back row of Barclay and Hardie then they will surely move to the next level.
Wales and Ireland have more tried and tested talent pools (although the injury-enforced glimpses of Stuart McCloskey and Josh van der Flier were encouraging), but it is now down to how they are managed by their coaches.
By Andy Daniel (@scrum5ive)
Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
15 replies on “6 things we learned from the weekend’s rugby”
1 – need a playoff, 1 match at the home ground of the lower team.
2 – it’s been a while, but the rest of us are now reminded of why we smile when England win. They’re almost unique in their ability to project how this bodes for their future, every time they win something. For a more elaborate summary of your point I recommend Matt Dawson’s utterances today.
3 – He put a smile on everyone’s face on Sunday after a tough tournament.
6 – and, as it’s hardly been mentioned (joke) Wales U20s looked excellent in their Grand Slam.
Why not introduce bonus points to encourage the lower teams in the table?
Because you’d be left with a situation where potentially the team that wins the Grand Slam won’t be the 6 Nations champions.
Solve Grand Slam issue by making a Slam worth 10 bonus pts.
My issue with BPs is that the comp isn’t home and away. It’s already a bigger ask to, for example, win 3 games on the road rather than 2 – a historical issue with the competition that won’t be fixed and that teams are geared up to cope with. It’s a much bigger thing then to turn home advantage into a possibly even greater thing with BPs. Only comps with home+away (or neutral ones like WCs) have BPs.
So?
For this to happen, Team A would need to win 5 with no bonus points, and Team B win 4 and pick up 5 bonus points. (NB: There is an even more complicated scenario where this could happen, but the chances are even more remote and, essentially the same anyway).
After 3 games, Team A would be on 12 points, and Team B would either be on 15 (if they haven’t played Team A) or 11 points (if they have played Team A). At this stage, Team A should know that two wins may not be enough and they may have to get a bonus point to secure the Championship. If they then don’t and lose the Championship, then they only have themselves to blame (and shouldn’t be awarded the Grand Slam either).
After 4 games, Team A would be on 16 points and Team B would be on 20 (if they haven’t played Team A or 16 points (if they have played Team A). Team A will definitely know if they have to play Team B they need to deny Team B the bonus point or, if they are playing someone else, they may need the try bonus point to win the Championship.
Bonus points aren’t going to sneak up on anyone. In the above situation, Team A pay the price for a lack of tries scored and not playing the situation that developed. They don’t deserve a trophy, despite the wins.
So you think beating 4 teams by BP try margins, losing to the 5th, should be awarded more than beating all 5 teams with no BP try margins? That there is exactly why BPs are mad in a small competition with a proud history of celebrating the pinnacle that is a clean sweep.
My point exactly.
I think if those are the rules it would be mad for a team to win 5 games and not win the Championship, but were it to happen, the team wouldn’t be able to cry foul and blame the rules.
I think artificially handing them the Championship by putting a loophole into an otherwise established bonus point system would undermine bonus points.
In truth, due to the nature of the tournament, bonus points would only be used as the “first separator”. There are no instances in the history of the Six Nations where a team would finish in a higher position under a bonus points regime than on a conventional regime, except for where the teams were separated on points difference in the conventional regime.
Even in 2002 when England were scoring tries for fun against Celtic teams who hadn’t adapted to professionalism as quickly, they still wouldn’t have pipped the Grand Slamming French team, who beat England at Twickenham. Now, in the current climate, I can’t see anyone winning 4 games with 4 bonus points, but if they did then they would rightly put themselves in contention (although the advantage would definitely be with the team who won 5).
What bonus points would therefore do is encourage teams to push for tries later on in games (instead of continuing to kick a team to “death by 3s”), and encourage teams who have lost a game to stick in the game to the end and try to pick up that losing bonus point.
These sub-plots would liven up games that are otherwise dead after 60 minutes and, hopefully, help teach the best Northern Hemisphere nations to score crucial tries when they matter. if you’ve read the Rugby World Cup statistical report, you’ll see that the Southern Hemisphere (especially New Zealand and Australia) regularly outscore the North in terms of tries, while the Northern Hemisphere take a lot more points from kicks. They did so at the Rugby World Cup, they did so at the 2014 Autumn Internationals. This is because they play to score tries, they know how to score tries when the pressure is on. We up here don’t.
I’m tired of being second best, and if it means implementing a regime whereby one team could potentially win 5 games and lose the Championship if all the stars aligned AND they refused to play the situation they were presented with, then so be it.
One team could win 22 Aviva Premiership games and not finish top of the regular season if another team won 18 games and picked up 16 bonus points. One team could win 22 Aviva Premiership games with bonus points, win the semi-final 100-0 and lose the final and not get the trophy. Competition rules are competition rules and changing those will obviously change the dynamic of the tournament. If you don’t adjust to that, then you don’t deserve to win. If you put in effective “loopholes”, then you undermine the change in the first place.
“the Grand Slamming French team, who beat England at Twickenham.” – No they didn’t, my bad. They beat England in Paris.
England won 4 “with 5 bonus points”. France won 5 “with 1 bonus point”. As they’d both finish with 21 points, it would come down to wins as the first separator, which France would then obviously take.
Even though there were no bonus points, France still scored 5 tries against Ireland in the final game. If one team is smashing everyone in front of them, then a “better” team should also be able to pick up at least one try bonus point.
If the six nations followed the same points system as most pools (4 points for a win. 2 for a draw. 0 for a loss. 1 for four tries. 1 for a loss of less than 7) the table would look as follows;
England 21
Wales 16
Ireland 13
Scotland 11
France 8
Italy 1
As can be seen it’s exactly the same as the actual table in ranking.
I expect relegation would be more of a motivation than the bonus point system
With the TV money involved Italy will never be cut from the 6N. A 7 nations tournament is the best solution me thinks.
I would prefer an 8 nation tournament over 7 as I don’t like the idea of a team sitting a week out, the rest is good for them but I feel its a momentum killer and I think that both Georgia and Romania have enough about them to make the bottom of the table far more competitive.
I think one of Scotland’s problems is they get to carried away with themselves and believe the hype so much that they set themselves up for a fall.
It’s one thing taking positives from the world cup and building on them but its totally another thinking your going to storm a tournament you have never won, England soon slapped them down, its also another thing beating Italy and a totally misfiring France at home, I knew that Ireland would beat them at home as they push the buck too far and fire themselves up too much.
If they are to improve they need to savour a win then try to build for the next game and try to beat whats in front of them rather than think, because of a good win they are world beaters.
England’s best could be yet to come? Well they had their 2 hardest @ home (states S. Jones of the S. Times. Wot!?) & the real test will come AWAY in 2 mths. So we’ll see.
And is EJ going to continue with 2 No. 6’s (v Pocock & Hooper), let alone 2 No.10@s? The E. Std ‘talks’ of his dismantling of the b/row & replacing Farrell with Tui.
As for ‘cruising’, well England weren’t v Wales @ the end & the Scots turned over x16 agin them. Can’t win with that stat. Comfortable v Ireland (who need to relearn ‘D’) & France (who need to relearn turning possession into pts.. &! ‘D’). Italy? What’s the pt?
Regds; ‘Talent pool runs deep in the Northern Hemisphere’, well, I’ve heard this since 1972. Would say, Maro Itoje and George Kruis, even get into the top 2/3 Kiwi S. rugby side?
‘Talking’ up too soon is a real weakness up here IMO. Give the guys a chance to prove themselves 1st… in the SH. Frankly, until they, or anyone else for that matter, does so, they are considered also rans down under.
In respect of ‘The northern hemisphere (may be?) lagging behind their SANZAR counterparts in style of play and’… EFFECTIVENESS, the author doesn’t watch enough S18. The Chiefs, e.g., essentially just put it to Argentina (Jags) AWAY last w/end.
Actions v deeds thing again?
Actions v words thing again?