RBS 6 Nations 2013

[Italophile]

French team named. No prize for guessing who's at 10.

15-Yoann Huget, 14-Vincent Clerc, 13-Mathieu Bastareaud, 12-Wesley Fofana, 11-Maxime Medard, 10-Frederic Michalak, 9-Morgan Parra
8-Louis Picamoles, 7-Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 6-Antonie Claassen, 5-Yoann Maestri, 4-Sebastien Vahaamahina, 3-Nicolas Mas, 2-Benjamin Kayser, 1-Thomas Domingo

Replacements: 16-Guilhem Guirado, 17-Vincent Debaty, 18-Luc Ducalcon, 19-Christophe Samson, 20-Yannick Nyanga, 21-Maxime Machenaud, 22-Francois Trinh-Duc, 23-Florian Fritz or Gael Fickou.

Still fancy them by a few on Saturday night.

 

[qwerty51]

Picamoles is a good shot at the top tryscorer of the 6N. Good odds from the bookies for that I'd assume

 

[Italophile]

He only needs a half-decent game to be player of the tournament for mine. Must break his big heart watching the shite that has gone on around him.

 

[JSRF10]

Picamoles has been the best player by a country mile in this tournament. Out of all the current 6 nations players he's probably the only one who get on a world xv at moment. The quality has been so poor this year, after the such a good start its just fallen off a cliff. Was reading the other day that Parisse in 3 games has made more passes than the Irish pack combined in 4, that stat sums up Irelands approach to this tournament. The Wallabies don't have a lot to fear thats for sure.

 

[Cardiffblue]

Melon back and chosen to lead Tim Cymru. Not sure that's a good idea!

 

[Cardiffblue]

Picamoles has been the best player by a country mile in this tournament. Out of all the current 6 nations players he's probably the only one who get on a world xv at moment. The quality has been so poor this year, after the such a good start its just fallen off a cliff. Was reading the other day that Parisse in 3 games has made more passes than the Irish pack combined in 4, that stat sums up Irelands approach to this tournament. The Wallabies don't have a lot to fear thats for sure.

Agree re Picamoles, poor sod is so v v alone

 

[Cardiffblue]

Leigh Halfpenny; Alex Cuthbert, Jonathan Davies, Jamie Roberts, George North, Dan Biggar, Mike Phillips; Gethin Jenkins (Capt), Richard Hibbard, Adam Jones, Alun Wyn Jones, Ian Evans, Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric, Toby Faletau.
REPLACEMENTS: Ken Owens, Paul James, Scott Andrews, Andrew Coombs, Aaron Shingler, Lloyd Williams, James Hook, Scott Williams

 

[Wales Fan]

Melon back and chosen to lead Tim Cymru. Not sure that's a good idea!

Big mistake IMHO, Paul James did a good job at loosehead last week and is a far stronger scrummager than Gethin. To have a chance we need to put the English scrum under pressure, don't think Gethin has the tools for that.
Glad Tipuric and Warburton get a chance to start a game together though.

Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Italophile]

Marler isn't any great scrummager.

 

[Italophile]

Sexton was named in the Ireland team but now out. Bunged his foot at training this morning. Young Paddy gets another start.

Ireland: R Kearney, C Gilroy, B O'Driscoll, L Marshall, K Earls, P Jackson, C Murray; C Healy, R Best, M Ross, M McCarthy, D Ryan, P O'Mahony, S O'Brien, J Heaslip.
Replacement: S Cronin, D Kilcoyne, S Archer, D Toner, I Henderson, P Marshall, I Madigan, L Fitzgerald.

And both Barbieri and Castro out of the Italian team with injuries. Bugger. Needed Barbieri against that Irish back row. The good news is that Burton remains out of the 23. The bad news is that Benvenuti remains on the bench with the useless Garcia starting.

Andrea Masi; Giovanbattista Venditti, Gonzalo Canale, Gonzalo Garcia, Luke McLean; Luciano Orquera, Edoardo Gori; Sergio Parisse (capt), Simone Favaro, Alessandro Zanni; Joshua Furno, Quintin Geldenhuys; Leonardo Cittadini, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Andrea Lo Cicero
Replacements: Davide Giazzon, Michele Rizzo, Alberto De Marchi, Antonio Pavanello, Francesco Minto, Paul Derbyshire, Tobias Botes, Tommaso Benvenuti

 

[JSRF10]

Disappointed Sexton is out again, obviously Kidney values a win in a nothing game over some proper squad development. Ireland should win by a score I think but I won't be watching live such is the lack of enthusiasm for Declan Kidney coached teams at this stage.
Hopefully both teams have a go and throw the ball around.

Don't know why Wales have dropped Paul James, they've potentially given up a huge advantage!

 

[Craig Riddington]

I think England are lucky to have Lancaster as coach but I'm starting to get worried when he comments that Marler will add solidity to the scrum I bet the Welsh front row is bricking it.

"Both props will have a big contribution. Joe will give us the solidity in the scrum and then as the game wears on Mako will come on and do his thing."

 

[Cardiffblue]

Just read an interview between George North and Lord Bald (clive Woodward). It confirms one of the more discomforting aspects of this 6N -that I've actually starded to like him. His comments from the touchline have been well-, interesting witty and intelligent. Love Nugget and Shane to death but they don't really offer much insight. Anyone else had this out-of-body experience?

 

[JSRF10]

The Williams', like many recently retired players turned pundits, are too close to the team to provide any critical analysis. They played with probably every member of that Wales team and aren't going to bag their mates on TV leading to them not really offering anything in the way of comment or analysis

 

[Craig Riddington]

Just read an interview between George North and Lord Bald (clive Woodward). It confirms one of the more discomforting aspects of this 6N -that I've actually starded to like him. His comments from the touchline have been well-, interesting witty and intelligent. Love Nugget and Shane to death but they don't really offer much insight. Anyone else had this out-of-body experience?

lol maybe Lord Bald is becoming more sane with age. I was reading a piece by Brian Moore last night and found myself agreeing with almost everything he said! He was talking about how the incorrect scrum feed has ruined scrummaging as it has meant that the modern scrum is all about the engagement and good technique is no longer needed to the extent that it was. Hence, we have a collection of 21yo props across the globe playing test rugby without having served an apprenticeship. I might seek counseling!

 

[KevinO]

Will watch the Ireland game somewhere, finally got the easy viewing time that suits a Saturday night out and I am not really interested in the game. Hope Wales can do World Rugby a favor and silence the Poms, 1 point win and stop the Grand Slam is enough. 8 Points and win the 6 Nations would be even better. Don't think I will be able to bare England beating the All Blacks and following it up with a Grand Slam.

 

[Craig Riddington]

Will watch the Ireland game somewhere, finally got the easy viewing time that suits a Saturday night out and I am not really interested in the game. Hope Wales can do World Rugby a favor and silence the Poms, 1 point win and stop the Grand Slam is enough. 8 Points and win the 6 Nations would be even better. Don't think I will be able to bare England beating the All Blacks and following it up with a Grand Slam.

You want me silenced? To be honest, part of me doesn't want to see England win the Grand Slam as it will have come too quickly for this group of players. When I look back to that WC winning side, all those Grand Slam disappointments contributed to the making of that team. And the current England squad, with an average age of under 25, have already achieved beyond most peoples expectations of them and they will continue to develop further. Actually, that's bollocks, I just hope we win.

 

[Italophile]

lol maybe Lord Bald is becoming more sane with age. I was reading a piece by Brian Moore last night and found myself agreeing with almost everything he said!

Moore is one of the more sensible English pundits. Actually knows what he's talking about - he'd done a ref's course on top of his own playing experience - even if he becomes obsessed about aspects of scrummaging like straight feeds. But more power to him. The IRB would do well to listen to him about scrummaging.

 

[Craig Riddington]

Moore is one of the more sensible English pundits. Actually knows what he's talking about - he'd done a ref's course on top of his own playing experience - even if he becomes obsessed about aspects of scrummaging like straight feeds. But more power to him. The IRB would do well to listen to him about scrummaging.

Yeah, agreed. I believe the IRB did listen to him, re:scrum feed and that they agreed the ref's need to be stricter on this aspect of the game...but they couldn't have understood why it is important otherwise refs would be doing something about it. They will take the engagement out of the scrum next.

 

[Italophile]

The stupid thing is that refs will ping 1 in 20 or 30 crooked feeds, oppo get the put in, and the 9 feeds just as crookedly as the one just pinged. And gets away with it. It's a bit like props' paws on the ground when scrummaging. It gets ignored - in fact, Clancy awarded a scrum penalty to England last week with Marler's paw on the ground right in front him - in the interests of getting a scrum completed.