AN intriguing opening weekend of the six nations has answered a few questions about the teams but has created several new ones that will be answered over the next two months.
The country with the most pressing issues to ponder is undoubtedly Wales. For a country that prides itself for its slick attacking rugby, the “Welsh Way” seems to have been replaced with an aimless, sideways shuffle as they repeatedly failed to break through a comfortable English defence. Warren Gatland, the Wales coach has a tough week ahead and faces a difficult selection meeting as Lions stars Mike Phillips, Stephen Jones, Shane Williams and Andy Powell all afiled to impress. Scrum half Phillips had a particularly poor game with a series of misplaced passes putting his side under pressure. He has always got away with taking a couple of steps sideways before releasing the ball because defenders were wary of potential for a devastating break. Against England he simply caused problems for his own team and heaped pressure on the already struggling Stephen Jones.
Wales are a side in serious need of a shake up and the only way to do it is to bring their most creative player James Hook into an area where he can influence play. With a strong looking centre pairing of Jonathon Davies and Jamie Roberts, that means fly-half. Another issue is the counterproductive Andy Powell who is not nearly as good a ball carrier as he thinks he is. Taking the ball into contact, he fails to break tackles and then produces slow ball as he falls on his face. Ryan Jones worked far harder and far more effectively when he replaced Powell and should start this weekend.
Another side that will need to take a long look at themselves is Ireland. For long spells, Italy dominated up front and Ireland relied on the talismanic Brian O’Driscoll for their try and Ronan O’Gara for the winning drop goal. Both of these players are the wrong side of 30 as is Gordon D’arcy, Paul O’Connell, Donnacha O’Callaghan and David Wallace. They cannot keep going much beyond the world cup but Ireland appear to have no plan B. Italy would have heartily deserved their win and would have claimed it apart from a poorly dealt with kick off and an atrocious drop goal attempt. However, they look like a team that will improve, even as the tournament goes on and they will definitely fancy their chances of a win against Wales in Rome. In fact you could argue that this will be the first ever six nation’s match that Italy will go into expecting to win.
It’s not often that you can be beaten 34-21 and take a lot of positives out of it. Scotland can take a lot of heart from their performance in the Stade De France. It’s the first time in years that Scotland claimed three tries against a top five nation, even longer since they scored three tries in an away fixture. The touch downs were all well worked and well deserved with inspirational leader Kellick selling a dummy to score his first ever Scotland try, Kelly Brown treating a weak Sebastian Chabal tackle with the contempt it deserves and Sean Lamont cutting a perfect line through the French defence. Particularly impressive were the two youngsters Richie Gray who put in the outstanding second row performance of the whole weekend and Joe Ansbro who looks like Scotland have finally found a dangerous and creative centre and I would be surprised if he does not improve as the tournament wears on. The only major area of concern is the scrum which was taken apart in the first half by a rampant French side. Euan Murray has not become a bad scrummager over night but a lack of match practice showed against the mighty Thomas Domingo and Moray Low should be given at least twenty minutes against Wales next week. The other concern is Nathan Hines at back row. He is an outstanding player but whether or not he is well served being used out of position is a moot point. He would probably be better deployed as a second row replacement with either Johnnie Beattie or Richie Vernon starting in the back row.
The two top performers of the opening weekend belonged undoubtedly to the pre tournament favourites, England and France.
The English look to have stumbled on the best way to win test matches. Don’t lose them.
England were never spectacular against a weak Welsh side but did enough with two clinical tries from Chris Ashton and a fine demonstration in how to control a game by the assured Toby Flood. The Leicester fly-half has grown into a truly international class playmaker where in previous seasons he has looked in imminent danger of a collapse. His vision to create the opening score was perfect and throughout he pulled the strings that kept England comfortably out of reach. Shontayne Hape, however is a stumbling block in midfield. He is effective with the ball in hand as solid in defence as you would expect from a former rugby league star. However, he is guaranteed to stop the flow of quick ball out wide as is distribution is horribly limited and he appears unable to pass off his left hand. This combined with the similarly one dimensional Mike Tindall is the weak link in the England chain that stronger opposition than Wales will exploit.
Talking of stronger opposition, France answered several of the questions asked by the shambolic autumn capitulation against Australia. At times against Scotland they were mesmerising, showing imagination and flair on the counter attack that no other side in the tournament is capable of. The try by the consistently exceptional Imanol Harinordoquy was the moment of opening weekend as an outrageously audacious pass by Francois Trinh Duc through his legs sent the big number 8 galloping home. It was spectacular stuff as was break away that led to Damien Traille touching down. This flair allied to the best pack in the tournament which humiliated a strong looking Scottish side at scrum time could see the French taking home yet another six nations win. In fact, the only thing standing between them and another Grand Slam appears at this stage to be the match at Twickenham against England which promises to be tournament settling encounter.
At this point I would stick to my pre-tournament prediction of a France win without a Grand Slam, England runners up, Scotland a tournament best third and Ireland fourth. However, I now think Italy have a good chance of taking fifth with Wales to prop up the table. One thing’s for sure, there’s going to be an awful lot more questions to be answered as the weeks roll on.
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