2014 Six Nations

[Rosco]

Starts tomorrow!

Ireland start against Scotland - can't see why we shouldn't beat them.

Ireland XV to play Scotland: Rob Kearney, Andrew Trimble, Brian O’Driscoll, Luke Marshall, Dave Kearney, Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rory Best, Mike Ross, Devin Toner, Paul O’Connell (c), Peter O’Mahony, Chris Henry, Jamie Heaslip.
Replacements: Jack McGrath, Sean Cronin, Martin Moore, Dan Tuohy, Tommy O’Donnell, Isaac Boss, Paddy Jackson, Fergus McFadden.

 

[Leo]

France have won the championship the last four times after a Lions tour.
I'll be backing them at 5 ta2 to win the championship and at 6 ta 1 for the grand slam.
Reckon if France can win in Cardiff they can do it.

 

[Jürgen4PM]

The winner of this afternoons game in Paris will win the championship.

 

[Jürgen4PM]

At the moment i'm more concerned with the civil war that's going on in Wales tbh. If it doesn't get sorted out then the future of the game in Italy, Wales, Ireland and Scotland looks very bleak.

 

[Leo]

England have been awful here so far.
Mistakes and missed tackles galore.
France have got a few lucky bounces but are by far the better team.

 

[FoxForceFive]

Just started watching this as England took the lead (stupid family thing I had to go to), England must have grown into the game cos they're looking decent enough to me.

 

[Leo]

Yeah huge change around in the second half.
It seems that France don't know how to win games anymore.

 

[FoxForceFive]

Fuck. Absolutely gutting.

 

[Leo]

Get in.
Great game of rugby.

 

[Jürgen4PM]

This weekend just keeps getting better and better.

 

[Rosco]

Smashing game. That last French try was so cooly taken. Goode wasn't all that impressive defensively there even if he had little hope of preventing a try, way too slow to close the distance and didn't even hit the man with the ball.

I think we'll beat Scotland tomorrow but not by much

 

[Rosco]

Good result for us but not a lot to get excited about. Any team in the world would miss O'Connell and O'Brien but the pack played pretty decently - it was a well organised performance - our set pieces were good, our loose game left a bit to be desired. A big positive was that it now looks like we have a little bit of depth in the front row. Moore and McGrath seem miles better than the likes of Tom Court who used to get on the bench. Tuohy had a decent game, but the pairing with Toner makes the second row a bit light weight.

Scotland's pack will give most teams a game, but the back line butchered a number of overlap situations that could have made the game a lot closer. Weir at 10 is an excellent tactical kicker.

 

[Athens]

@Rosco Did O'Driscoll receive a 5 match ban last year or was I dreaming that? Was it another Irish player that got a ban towards the end of last year's tournament?

 

[Rosco]

No I think he did get a ban - but only a short one

 

[Rosco]

yeah - http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-uni...ed-for-three-weeks-for-stamp-on-simone-favaro

 

[Athens]

yeah - http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-uni...ed-for-three-weeks-for-stamp-on-simone-favaro

Ah I knew I wasn't imagining it.

I said this in the bar yesterday and the guys I was with just looked me as if I had two heads.

 

[Rosco]

 

[Athens]

I was at that match too.

I must have tried to wipe it from my memory.

 

[Rosco]

Hibbard playing a blinder.

Two turnovers and two penalties. 6-0 ireland

 

[Rosco]

16-0.

 

[Rosco]

Hibbard butchering every ball carry, super Sam knocks on during Wales best attack

 

[Rosco]

Wales have won one of their last ten games with Warburton as captain! Ha

 

[Jürgen4PM]

Ouch!

I think our boys are tired from their Lions exploits.

 

[doctor_mac]

O'Mahony and Henry combined brilliantly around the ruck to ruin the Welsh. Wales never looked in the game.

 

[Rosco]

The funniest thing was Williams trying to do BOD then having to be subbed from hurting himself from the attempt.

Our new forwards coach is getting a lot of plaudits - and rightly so. It was a really disciplined and well organised performance. The driving mauls off the lineout are perfect - the opposition are focusing in taking the catcher down but we're moving the ball away and changing the focus of the drive. Murray is excellent at organising it

 

[doctor_mac]

The Mauls were excellent.

 

[Rosco]

Williams is out for three months.

Karma is a bitch

 

[Spaghetti Legs]

Is there a more overrated team in any sport than the Welsh rugby union team?

So many words written and spoken, very little action to really back it up, when they beat England the hype gets going way ott, if they played like they do against England every match maybe the hype would be justified.

Really can't see them making it out of the group in next years World Cup.

 

[Jürgen4PM]

Well lets look at what the Welsh rugby union team has achieved in recent years:

Almost made the last world cup final with 14 players
Won numerous Grand slams and championships over the last 9 years
The British and Irish Lions team that won it's first series in 16 years was made up of no less than 10 Welshman.

Then when you take into account how young the vast majority of this current squad is, maybe you'll start to understand why so many people rate them highly.

 

[Spaghetti Legs]

Almost made a World Cup Final means nothing, so did Argentina not to long back.

Yep, agree with the 6 nations recent record, its impressive but over valued in the grand scheme of things, this is what skews it with the hype makers because there is no other reason to hype them bar individual players, their record against the southern hemisphere teams is laughable and thats being kind, they were losing to the likes of Japan/Tonga/Samoa not that long ago aswell and seem to only know how to play 1 way, when that 1 way doesn't work they are usually fucked.

Yes they have some class players but so do all of the top teams, reminds me very much of the 'golden generation' for the England football team, hype hype hype.