Six Nations kicks off with a bang

The road to madness is paved with the splattered brains of sports commentators who have read too much into the opening match of a World Cup, the first round at Wimbledon, or the first Grand Prix of the year.  For that reason, this column does not speculate that a long-awaited return to expansive rugby as standard in the international game is upon us.  Yet there can only be a cautious satisfaction at the quality of fare in the first three matches of the 2013 Six Nations Championship.

The weekend began with what now feels almost part of the furniture in the Test arena: a home defeat for Wales.  Wales won the Grand Slam in 2012, which they have followed up by losing eight Tests in a row.  Wales's last win of any description was against the Barbarians on 2 June last year.

And yet in very few of these matches were Wales pulverized.  They lost their summer series in Australia 3-0, yet should have won two of those games.  In the Autumn they had a nightmare, yet only Argentina beat them convincingly.  A late try did for them against Samoa, they emerged with credit following a two-try second-half rally against the rampant (at the time) New Zealand and were 12-9 up against Australia at the death, before Kurtley Beale's last-gasp try broke Millennium Stadium hearts.

Wales-Ireland was not quite a game of two halves.  Ireland dominated for the first 45 minutes, Wales for the final 35; which is probably why Ireland won.  As a spectacle, it was splendid, illuminated by Irish win Simon Zebo, who followed his early try with an audacious mid-air backheel that turned a shoddy pass into, ultimately, a try for prop Cian Healy.

Over the Calcutta Cup hung the question: can England maintain their momentum from their spectacular Autumn triumph over New Zealand?  Another 38-point haul was forthcoming, lit up by a dazzling England midfield.  Those words have not been written often in the last decade but, in fly-half Owen Farrell and débutant inside centre Billy Twelvetrees, they had a partnership capable of ripping holes in Scotland's defence.

There is a moment in "House of Cards", the peerless British political drama of the early 1990s based on the Michael Dobbs novel, when journalist Mattie Storrin speculates that the Tory conference is 'happening in code', that it is 'really about something else'.  This championship is similar; the great debate over the British & Irish Lions squad continues throughout.

So give thanks, then, that the embryonic championship is proving enthralling in its own right.  England's deserve credit for beating convincingly a Scotland side who did not at all play badly, and for whom full-back Stuart Hogg and No 8 Johnnie Beattie put in outstanding performances that should give cause for second thoughts to those who speculate that the summer's touring party to Australia will have a Scottish contingency that could arrive at Heathrow airport in a Mini Cooper.

England's scrum half Ben Youngs was back to his best, the marvellous Geoff Parling try coming from his break and a raking long pass from Farrell.  England go to Dublin ahead of next Sunday's encounter at Lansdowne Road with a spring in their step.

Speculation that this might be the best opening weekend in Six Nations history became solid certainty on Sunday afternoon when the Italians deservedly beat France in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.  There was plenty of graft and grind but also evidence that Italy can, on occasion, produce moments of attacking brilliance.  The move that led to Sergio Parisse's opening try was quite wonderful and would have graced the Stade de France or Eden Park.

France must visit Ireland and England and already have little chance of winning the tournament.  Yet perhaps the most interesting fixture next weekend is Scotland vs Italy, perhaps no longer a wooden spoon play-off in all but name.  Scotland must get more possession than they did at Twickenham; they showed enough in England to convince that they now know how to score tries.  The constant fall in try-scoring in the Six Nations is much-lamented, but the opening three fixtures offered a mere hint that defences may no longer be on top.

Ireland frozen out as Italian hopes go for a Burton

England are two fifths of the way to a Grand Slam; or, more probably, two fifths of the way to winning two Six Nations matches out of five.  Saturday's win in the Roman snow showed a certain degree of character but little else.  When they meet a team better at scoring tries than Scotland – which is to say, anybody else – or with a better fly half than the Italians – see above – they might find themselves in a spot of bother.


If Italy had a fly half capable of playing at anything on speaking terms with international standard, they would have walloped England, who froze figuratively as well as quite literally on what passed for the pitch at the Stadio Olimpico.


At least England have a coach who can make effective substitutions.  After 51 minutes, Ben Morgan and Lee Dickson replaced Phil Dowson at Number 8 and Ben Youngs at scrum half to good effect.  Youngs, who looks like a scrum half who could do with being taken out of the limelight for a while, had looked a shadow of his former self.  The introduction of Dickson gave England a sort of purpose and organization in attack lacking in the first half; though again they were dependent on a charge-down try from fly-half Charlie Hodgson to seal a narrow victory.

Hodgson played well enough to give Toby Flood cause for concern that he will not cheerfully walk straight back into the team when he is up to Test match fitness.  He played flat, with discipline and a little vision; admittedly modest virtues, yet utterly beyond poor old Kristopher Burton.  Burton was born in Brisbane yet, had he remained in Australia, would have no more chance of being selected for the Wallabies as Libby Kennedy.

He was replaced at fly-half by Tobias Botes, whose Wikipedia article states that he normally plays as a scrum half.  He ought to stick to the day job as his kicking was worse than Burton's, and that was some achievement.  In the 2009 meeting at Twickenham, flanker Mauro Bergamasco was shoe-horned in at scrum-half and had a nightmare, gifting a first Test try to Riki Flutey and passing the ball with a level of inaccuracy which would shame a boy on the playing fields of Ampleforth College.  No longer are those forty minutes of misadventure the worst individual performance by an Italian in the Six Nations championship.

England, alas, cannot play Scotland's backs and Italy's half-backs every week.  Wales, who made light work of an ill-disciplined Scotland side at the Millennium Stadium, will be favourites to complete a Triple Crown at Twickenham on 25 February

There was only slightly less good rugby played at the Stade de France, and only because there was no rugby at all; not even of any kind.  Match referee Dave Pearson took the sensible decision to call off the match due to a dangerously frozen pitch.

All of which was very fine and proper, but the knowledge that many of the fans travelling from Ireland or the south of France will be neither able to afford nor inclined to return when the match in eventually staged – it is expected to be re-arranged for the weekend of 2-3 March – does give call to some pertinent questions.

Not least, why, having experienced the freezing Parisian weather every night of the last week, could the authorities not have foreseen such problems?  As the Stade de France has no under-soil heating (it is built on an old methane field, so it isn't just Twickenham that's built on old farts, &c. and so on…) it was never likely that the pitch would be playable for a kick-off at 9pm local time.  France must not be allowed to schedule a Six Nations match at the stadium so late in the evening again.

Could the kick-off time have been brought forward?  The details of the question are not known to your humble servant, so we will draw a veil over it – not that doing so to the St-Denis pitch did it any good.  If France are to win the Grand Slam, they will probably have to do so playing four Tests in four weeks.

Ireland and Wales serve feast after Calcutta Cup famine

Is there a single sight in sport more predictable than Scotland finding an ever-more ingenious way of not scoring a try?

Scotland dominated large spells of Saturday’s Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield yet, faced with a reasonably competent defensive display from England, they simply could not turn it into points on the board.  They could not even get penalties as England suddenly seemed to be a team on speaking terms with self-discipline.

Scotland have not scored a try in four Test matches, two of which were against Georgia and Argentina.  At Murrayfield, they went left and dropped the ball.  They went right and dropped the ball.  They went down the middle and dropped the ball.  For dropping the ball is what the Scotland rugby team do; at Murrayfield, it is almost endemic.

When they weren’t dropping the ball, they were giving away penalties inside the England 22, or turning over possession through being outnumbered in a ruck, or failing to find touch from a penalty.  Dan Parks, the starting Scotland fly-half, had one of those games that commentators are wont do describe as ‘not one for the scrapbook’.  His kicking game was poor.

At the start of the second half, one Parks kick did at least set up a try.  For England.  Charlie Hodgson’s charge-down score summed up the grotesque lack of finesse that the game suffered from start to finish.  Hodgson was excellent, as was England’s second-rower Moritz Botha.  That they stood out merely for looking like international footballers is the perfect condemnation of a dreadful match.

The following day, at Lansdowne Road, Ireland and Wales appeared to be playing a completely different sport.  Their encounter was everything you could ask of a sporting contest: high quality, high scoring and dramatic right to the end.

George North, superficially human, clattered through massed Irish defenders to set up the first try of the match for Jonathan Davies II, and clattered through massed Irish defenders to score the last.  The lead, by the end, had changed hands four times.

The main talking point was the referee, as indeed it usually in high profile rugby Tests.  It was in the World Cup semi final, when Sam Warburton was sent off for a clumsy but, ultimately, non-dangerous ‘tip tackle’; in the Final, when local desperation to see New Zealand crowned world champions evidently invaded the soul of Craig Joubert, the South African whose inept officiating cost France the tournament; and at Murrayfield, where replacement fly-half Greig Laidlaw was denied a try by the Television Match Official.

Wales lock Bradley Davies’ tackle on Donnacha Ryan was, without question, a much worse offense than Warburton’s in Auckland.  In the words of the touch judge Dave Pearson, he ‘picked him up, turned him upside down and dropped him on his head’; the very definition of a spear tackle.  So why only a yellow card was recommended, and why referee Wayne Barnes failed to instantly enquire as to Dave Pearson mental wellbeing and show a red card, only they know.  To make matters worse for Ireland, they lost the game to a borderline penalty, when Stephen Ferris clumsily but safely mis-tackled Ian Evans.  Ferris, ludicrously, was sin-binned for the remaining seconds of the match.

Yet all of this merely added to the excitement.  Scotland v England was a great advert for the 6 Nations; immersive, tense and committed.  This, though, was the great advert for rugby union football.  Wales showed class to add to the quality of character that, on its own, was enough for England to achieve their victory.  Against Ireland, Wales needed something extra.  So will England.