Six Nations Round Three: France on Track for Grand Slam

With a week’s respite for the Six Nations teams, a few things happened in the world of Rugby. One was the extra time training and planning for the rest of the competition, the other was South Africa’s application to join the Six Nations competition, getting rid of Italy the Springboks would take their place. This application has been turned down by the Six Nations committee, however it will be interesting to see if the Springboks follow with this.

This weekend brought some interesting rugby so let’s take a look.

France (36) vs Scotland (17) – From: Stadt de Paris

With this game France has shot to third best team in the world, with a six try salvo over Scotland at Stadt de Paris this weekend. Scotland played defence for the first 20 minutes and it cost them as France powered through with two tries.

During the second half Scotland back half was tested as they came to within two points of the French. Scotland however fell into their old tactics of giving away penalties and having their try attempts break down by a strong French defence.

Gregor Townsend said: “There were a lot of positives, I thought our scrum was very strong against arguably one of the best scrummaging teams in the world.

“Our maul defence was good too, we just need to trust that a little bit more because we did give away a couple of penalties in that area, but the effort the players put in was huge throughout the 80 minutes.”

England (23) – Wales (19) – From: Twickenham

Despite Wales still having an injury crisis, they managed to out try England in the first half scoring three tries for England’s one. England did however play some magnificent rugby keeping possession for most of the half.

During the second half Wales started to fall apart when England resorted to their old tried and tested tactics of kicking penalties to close the gap. Although this was a close-run game with England playing defence for the last twenty minutes, they may be back on track to come second in the competition and improve from there.

England Head coach Eddie Jones said: “We put ourselves in a good winning position in the first 50 minutes, had a moment there for 10, 15, 20 minutes where we were a bit untidy in our defence, let them back into the game, but then the last five or six minutes I thought we were exceptional again for a young team that’s developing.

“We’ve got nine, 10 and 15 (Harry Randall, Smith and Freddie Steward) who have played under 10 caps, and a number 8 (Dombrandt) just out of university. They are young guys and they need to learn how to handle situations.

“I thought there were some really good signs out there tonight.”.

Ireland (57) – Italy (6) – From: Aviva Stadium

It was quite predictable that Ireland would defeat Italy, the fact that Italy got knocked down to thirteen men made this an even easier game for the Irish.

Gianmarco Lucchesi was gone after nine minutes through injury. His replacement, Epalahame Faiva, was given a red card for a high shot on Ireland’s hooker Dan Sheehan. This allowed Ireland to run in nine tries back to back.

Ireland coach, Andy Farrell said: “When we go to the point of [playing against] 13 men – look it’s just weird. We understand why the rule was brought in but at the same time in situations like that it’ll bring the rule back to everyone’s attention and they’ll look at it. From my point of view, rightly, Italy was trying to slow the game down and with uncontested scrums everyone’s legs are nice and fresh and that’s why Italy were tenacious in defence throughout, even when they went to 12 men.”

Rugby conclusion of the week:

The victory over Wales gave England the shot in the arm that they needed, it does beg the question are Scotland playing their hardest? They beat England to keep the Calcutta cup and lost to Wales. With England beating Wales it does bring Scotland’s Rugby game into doubt.

France look set to gain a grand slam in the competition, Ireland were the only team to stop them and they couldn’t get the job done. Ireland are improving game by game and are definite to gain second place, if England does not keep performing.

As for Italy, the only thing they can hope for is to get better for the next competition. Playing a team with thirteen men is a defeat waiting to happen for most teams.