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England are unchanged for Italy game: England team to face Italy at the Stadio Olimpico, Rome: Ben Foden; Chris Ashton (both Northampton), Brad Barritt, Owen Farrell, David Strettle; Charlie Hodgson (all Saracens), Ben Youngs(Leicester); Alex Corbisiero (London Irish), Dylan Hartley...

One change to the Ireland team to face France and that's Keith Earls coming back into centre, Fergus McFadden drops to the bench and Dave Kearney out of the squad. So it's the exact same 22 that were named for Wales before Earls had to withdraw. Ireland team to face France at the Stade de...

Agree with you on everyhing you posted Dai. Barnes only had the word of his TJ to go on so he can't be blamed for giving a yellow. One thing on the expansion of the role of the TMO is that the quality of the TMOs would have to improve as their role expands. I think top tier Refs who've been...

Barnes was shuffled to the side after an underwhelming performance in the pool stages which included the SA v Wales game where he refused to go to the TMO for the Hook penalty that would have won it for Wales. That and another few gaffs probably put him way down the pecking order for the knock...

Since I'm a Leinster fan and a big fan of Rocky Elsom I've decided to follow the Waratah's this year in Super Rugby. Being a Leinster fan for so many years I'm used to a very gifted bunch of players raising my hopes each season then dashing them by underperforming. Luckily with Leinster there...

I think the Wales backs that started against Ireland probably just shade it from France. But one weekend to another in the 6Ns, depending on how the packs perform, a backline can look like world beaters or totally inept or somewhere inbetween the two. One thing is for sure both backlines are...

French team for Saturday's game against Ireland: France: M Medard; V Clerc, A Rougerie, W Fofana, J Malzieu; F Trinh-Duc D Yachvili; JB Poux, D Szarzewski, N Mas; P Pape, Y Maestri; T Dusautoir, I Harinordoquy, L Picamoles. Replacements: W Servat, V Debaty, L Nallet, J Bonnaire, M Parra, L...

It really was a cracker of a match. I brought my brother who I'm slowly turning into a rugby fan and his girlfriend, it was her first rugby match that she's attended and I think in time she'll be a big fan also.

Just back from the game. Congratulations to Wales on the win. Ireland should have closed it out better in the last minute but over the game can't complain about the result. Need a big improvement for the rest of the 6Ns. For the penalty right at the end I was disgusted to hear so many of my...

Nice analysis of the two back rows for tomorrow's game from Martyn Williams Ireland's Six Nations clash with Wales on Sunday is not short of interesting sub-plots and storylines. But even 16 months out from the 2013 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia, the back-row battle is ripe with...

Yes it was a much better game than France v Italy. As soon as things because even slightly unstructured Italy had no scramble defence whatsoever. I thought TMO was going to award the try to Scotland. But they had other chances to score and messed them up. Same old same old from Scotland really...

One of the most exciting parts of that was the guy in the crowd with the bee at 5:30. Lucky Eales wsa such a good player, having to make his debut with a terrible hooker couldn't have been easy. Nice to see Guscott on the losing side, pitty it didn't happen more often and maybe he'd be less...

I think at international level one of the big stumbling blocks this year for rotation will be the Deans will be so worried about losing tests Australia are expected to win that he'll be less likely to rotate outside the instances Lee mentioned where it's more enforced changes due to selection...

If it was me in charge I'd use the new system to identify the weak refs. Those with a very low onfield yellow card count issued by themselves but a high off-field yellow card count should be given a warning and if there's no improvement should be removed from the super rugby panel until they do...

From reading it, it seems player reports the incident to the ref, I would imagine via the captain or we'd have a soccer style free for all with players surrounding refs. Then ref would report to the citing commissioner probably similar to procedure for contacting the TMO.

It may be a storm in a tea cup in terms of the effect of the law changes. But the break down in communications where SANZAR hasn't informed the clubs that the law was to change is unacceptable. There must have been some official report released after the referees meeting. I don't see why all...

Over here rotation is just a fact of life. The IRFU which centrally contracts the players has it written into the contracts of players that those in the Ireland squad can only play a certain number of games each year. This not only keeps the players fresh but allows new talent to gain experience...

Interesting Read: The BBC pundit's predictions for the 6Ns http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/16824077 The RBS Six Nations Championship - the showpiece international tournament in European rugby - resumes this weekend. France and Italy open proceedings in Paris on Saturday (1430 GMT)...

Here's the Italian team to play France: Italy : 15-Andrea Masi, 14-Giovanbattista Venditti, 13-Tommaso Benvenuti, 12-Alberto Sgarbi, 11-Luke Mclean, 10-Kris Burton, 9-Edoardo Gori; 1-Andrew Lo Cicero, 2-Leonardo Ghiraldini, 3-Martin Castrogiovanni, 4-Cornelius Van Zyl, 5-Quintin Geldenhuys...

Keith Earls has withdrawn form the Ireland squad to play Wales due to the poor health of his infant daughter. Fergus McFadden moves up from the bench to 13 and Dave Kearney comes into the squad as a replacement.