Happy Monday everyone. And isn’t it great to be back on G&GR? All the boys and girls have returned as we propel ourselves into a huge rugby year. What a big week and weekend it’s been. We’ll look at Round 2 of the Six Nations (excluding the Scotland v Ireland game which hadn’t been played at the time of publishing). Then we’ll dive into the other SRP Australian trial games and have a look there.
So set up your computer at work, put your lunch in the office fridge, grab a big cup of that beautiful brown stuff ☕ and let’s do the G&GR business.
Men’s Six Nations – Round 2
Crap weather in Rome made the job extremely hard for the Welsh team to try and get their 6 Nations campaign back on track. But alas, the Welsh team has hit rock bottom and started excavating. Italian winger Ange Capuozzo’s sizzling first-half try, plus magical kicking by fullback Tommaso Allan with five penalties and a conversion, gave the Northern Hemisphere Sheep shaggers a day out they’d rather have forgotten. The Welsh scored through Aaron Wainwright and a late penalty try plus a Ben Thomas penalty. Despite Italy having a complete brain fade with two players given some 🧀, they still managed to hang on.
The Welsh managed to pick up a losing bonus point, but that was the only real highlight for what was otherwise a dim weekend. They’ve also slumped to 12th on the world rankings with Georgia surging above them. “There’s no doubt it’s challenging,” Gatland stated. “You do question yourself. The players are working incredibly hard but when you’re under pressure, your decision-making goes! You feel the pressure as a team that hasn’t won for a while … That’s where we are at the moment. We need the bounce of the ball.”
“Today we showed how practical we can be and how confident we are in what we can do,” said Italy captain Michele Lamaro. “The only goal that we discussed this week was to deliver on the pitch for a full 80 minutes.”
You have to feel for Warren Gatland and the Welsh players. We Aussies know what this situation feels like. The only difference is that Warren Gatland seems like a good bloke whereas we had Dr. Evil and were glad to get rid of him.
Well, what a banging match that was. Attacking raids by both teams and a fantastic ending. The only disappointing thing was that the Soap Dodgers won (sorry Keith), we all know that a loss for England is good for rugby.
“I’m delighted for the players and happy for the supporters who are always magnificent behind this team,” coach Borthwick stated. “You want things to happen instantly. This England team is going to be a good England team and there’s a lot of talent, the ceiling is so high and what you’ve got to do is keep working hard.”
What struck me about the match was how France had the dropsies. Their attacking raids were brilliant, but one pushed pass too many, or one dropped ball 4 metres out from the try line and it turned to shite for the Frogs. If those first three or four attacking raids had stuck and scored it would’ve been a different ball game. But alas, it wasn’t and the Poms showed their true grit and stuck it out.
The Poms victory ends their run of seven losses on the trot. Fin Smith looked good in the 10 jumper and guided the team well. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot to work on with discipline and the Poms lineout still struggled at times. But there are green shots sprouting for Borthwick, particularly with their resilience and not giving up, grinding it out to the end.
For the Frogs, the dropped ball and the pushed passes really hurt them in attack. Dupont, as much as he tried, couldn’t save the team and they needed saving from an off night. Ramos their usually accurate kicking man had the yips. “We can only be annoyed by ourselves, especially in the first half,” stated Antoine Dupont. “We have regrets, we should have scored at least three tries, the game’s not the same after that. They were pragmatic and scored every time they got into our territory. We wasted too many opportunities, if you don’t finish them, you don’t win the game!”
So the Grand Slam is gone for the Froggies, but I wouldn’t want to be playing them next week, they’ll come back hard. As for England, they deserved that win. The next round will see if it was a flash in the pan or the start of something positive for Steve Borthwick’s team.
Queensland Reds 38 defeated Ulster 31
My beloved Reddies finished their Northern Hemisphere tour with a solid 38-31 win over Ulster in what was a great game of rugby. The match featured a double to Tim “the JunkYard Dog’ Ryan and a concussion to Filipo Daungunu.
Dirty Harry Wilson stated, “We’re really excited to earn two wins over here, but we know it means nothing come our first game at Suncorp Stadium. We’re excited to see where we can go this year! It’s very cool to wear the Queensland jersey on the world stage and it’s not something many teams get to do. All of the Wallabies boys who returned to pre-season were just so excited to get back in the Queensland group and rip in, and touring this time of the year has been awesome for our connection. We’ve been in each other’s pockets for two weeks and while we’re probably due for a bit of time back home away from each other, it’s been such a special tour for us.”
As well as the Junkyard Dog, Hunter Paisami and Matty Faesler had standout games. Tate ‘Jo Dirt’ McDermott put in a solid shift with a nice little try under the posts. Newcomer Heremaia Murray had a strong performance.
The side now has two weeks off to recover before their first SRP game in round two following a bye in the first round. The players will need to get over their flight back from the UK, and all eyes will be on Mr Filipo to see how he pulls up for a pretty bad head knock. The positive sign was that he was able to walk off under his own steam, is a darned site better than getting carried off on a stretcher which is initially what it looked like. But two wins for the Reds overseas, and so far no major injury concerns in a good warm-up heading into their first match against Moana Pasifika. GO REDDIES!
ACT Brumbies 45 defeated Western Force 12
The ACT Puppy Killers gave the Western Force a fair touch-up during their warm-up game held at Marist College on Friday afternoon. What initially started off as a tight affair soon blew out after half-time with the score at oranges 12 all. But whatever coach Larkham said to his boys at the break worked, because they came out firing.
Bernie was pretty happy with his squad’s performance, “Both trial matches were tough games. Particularly in the first half, the Force has only had one trial and had to get some minutes into a lot of different players. So we saw a lot of change in that second half across both teams,” he stated. “We can certainly learn from some of that stuff that happened in the first half. Things aren’t quite where they need to be and we’ve got some aspects to work on. Obviously, we’re very pleased, every time you get a win you are. Last week was a draw and we weren’t quite happy with it, but it was a good spectacle. It’s put us in an excellent position for the start of the season against Fijian Drua.”
The Force’s form is hard to judge based on that game. The first half looked great, but when they rotated players it became very disjointed. Based on the first half, when they had their A-Team on deck they were genuinely competitive. We’ll have to wait and see when the first round of SRP cracks on.
Anyway, that’s enough of this old man rabbiting on. Over to you G&GRs, have at it.
