6 Nations

Lovely running rugby from Italy even if they lost.

Wales with an admittedly young inexperienced team are just woeful currently.

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Italy still havenā€™t learnā€™t how long the game is. They never turn up for the second half. :grinning:

Wales, very poor. How do they expect to win if they keep giving the ball away?

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Too much inexperience- you basically have headless chicken Adams, Wainwright and Reffell.

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Ireland were massively better than France last evening but how much of this was contributed to by the red card for two clangers of tackles is anyoneā€™s guess. Iā€™m getting old I suspect as Six Nations competition kicking off on a Friday night just feels plain wrong to me!

Peter

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At least England tried to play more quickly from the breakdown and didnā€™t just kick the ball away after 1-2 phases. They looked pretty disorganised though. Lots of changes, lots of work to be done.

Is Daly a Test class winger any more? Has he been for 2 or 3 years? Is there really nobody else?

Bruce

Wales recovery, heart and free play is outstanding.

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That was just crazy. Poor game management from Scotland and they really dodged a shell let alone a bullet. They have a lot of work to do before they play France next time. Wales have an easier task now to motivate themselves for Twickenham.

Flower of Scotland!!

Great comeback from Wales, at half time I was wondering what had gone wrong with Welsh Rugby.

Scotland looked a real contender until they fell asleep at the wheel.

Foot note: must not read this thread till after Iā€™ve had an opportunity to watch the replays from overnight. :grin:

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Italy v England, hard to tell after one game but canā€™t imagine either of these teams figuring in the pointy end of the competition.

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Pete ā€“ Irelandā€™s championship to lose all day long after the game against France. England, for all the noise around new players, panicked at times in open play and demonstrated, once again, they can get cut open with ease from set-plays and in open-field situations ā€“ this is my biggest worry, as teams like Scotland and Wales like to play unstructured, as was the case yesterday.

I agree with @BruceW 's sentiments above. Yesterday, England had an open-door 10-channel, and a left winger in Daly who, not for the first time, got ā€˜lostā€™ in defence at times, especially in H1.

For England followers this 6Nā€™s, like several of recent years, is likely to be a painful watch at times e.g. there was a moment yesterday when England had advanced in open play to ~ the 1/2-way line and the ball was delivered back ~15 metres to Ford (#10) to try and kick a long diagonal. Bizarre.

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Sad to report that Barry John has died.
Icon and a totem: just an inspiration.
Sad day.

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Was just about to post that. First JPR in January, now this.

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Hereā€™s hoping things go better than last week against Italy. Not inspired by retaining Daly (as @BruceW mentions), as whereā€™s the threat when you need to score points i.e. tries(?), as Wales are going to come at England in open play.

Maybe the outcome will depend on whether first half or second half Wales turn out.

I suppose Borthwick wants to build a bit of continuity. I am not expecting a great deal, but some progress would be good. May not be enough if Wales get fired up.

Looking forward to Scotland v France much more!

Bruce

7 Welsh changes I think.

From a Welsh viewpoint Iā€™d expect England to pull it off purely due to experience.

You sometimes see individual players ā€˜sparkā€™ on their debuts (Scott Quinnelll for insatnce, or was it 4th game?) but I suspect the 2nd half last week was a bit of an oddity.

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I watched four fairly mediocre teams today. Scotland perhaps unlucky against a flat and uninspired France. England a few positives* but not much to get the pulse racing. Wales very average.

Seems like a big post RWC hangover for everyone to me, squad and coaching changes have rather stifled things.

Bruce

*I thought Mitchell was good, much prefer him to Van Portvliet. Earl starting to look like a decent No 8 too. Still no sign of a coherent or dangerous England back line though.

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England still over-coached and individuals significantly worse than they perform for club sidesā€¦

I thought Ollie Chessum was very unlucky to get a yellow card - simply no way due to his team mateā€™s tackle bringing down the opposing player did he have time to adjust position or avoid that contact as the Welsh player dropped. Slow motion replays just make it look so much worse.

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Have to agree a very uninspiring night of rugby.