Six Nations 2009 to feature Friday night match
The 2009 Six Nations will herald a new era, with the Wales v France match scheduled for a Friday night.
This decision will no doubt have some rugby traditionalists shaking in their blazers, bemoaning the end of the 3pm Saturday kick off. Well, not me - I like it. I’m quite a fan of evening rugby, and if Saturday night is suitable, why not Friday night?
What do you think? Does it matter?!
2009 Six Nations fixtures
February 7, England v Italy (1500), Ireland v France (1700); February 8, Scotland v Wales (1500).
February 14, France v Scotland (1500), Wales v England (1730); February 15, Italy v Ireland (1430).
February 27, France v Wales (2000); February 28, Scotland v Italy (1500), Ireland v England (1730).
March 14, Italy v Wales (1500), Scotland v Ireland (1700); March 15, England v France (1500).
March 21, Italy v France (1315), England v Scotland (1530), Wales v Ireland (1730).
Six Nations Betting League - Winners Announced
‘brandon145’ has claimed the top prize in the Six Nations Betting League, brushing aside the other competitors to lead for most of the competition and ultimately win comfortably - he wins £250.
‘wobbard’ takes second place (£200) after rising steadily over the past few weeks, pushing ‘kelvinlittle’ into third (£150) by just £2.
‘Hutchisonrob’ wins 4 weekend passes to the Bournemouth Sevens for coming in fourth, ‘KemloLongstaff’ wins the framed rugby print from DevotedToSport, whilst our resident writer Stu Peel wins a Front Up T-shirt.
‘richardbourne20’, ‘Lofty2008’, ‘tvandort’, ‘leeroycal’ all win a T-shirt from the MOTD Rugby campaign.
The winner of the prize draw is ‘Irishreg’ who will receive 2 tickets to the England v Barbarians match.
We will contact winners individually with regards to delivering their prize.
Today Europe, tomorrow the world for rejuvenated Wales
It is common knowledge that Wales only won the Grand Slam because they have Shaun Edwards, an Englishman; and Warren Gatland, a Kiwi; and they had Iain Balshaw playing for them at Twickenham. They played okay but had the luck of the bounce. They were in this position three years ago and stuffed it up – they will inevitably do it again. This is another false dawn.
These are just some of the barbs with which Englishmen throughout the land will be attempting to wind up the nearest Welshman. And the Welsh will simply be able to smile smugly and invite the English to ‘show us yer medals’.
Sadly none of the above is actually particularly true. Wales won the Grand Slam because they have very good players, played fantastically well as a team and were the best side in the tournament by a distance. However begrudging some of the congratulation being aimed their way by disillusioned Saxons, they heartily deserved their success.
We may have to get used to it as well. Many of this Welsh team are young and this time they are likely to retain their hunger. 2005 was the ultimate false dawn and many of the players looked like they felt they had made it. I’d like to see the players team up and try to overthrow Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards. Good luck with that boys, you may not live to tell the tale.
There is absolutely no reason why Wales should not be there or thereabouts in the 6 Nations all the way up to the 2011 World Cup and beyond. They have the players, the coaching structure and staff and there should be no shortage of desire in such a rugby-mad country. If they shake off their traditional inferiority complex when playing the Southern Hemisphere, they could even challenge for the next World Cup. They share with Ireland a lack of belief when playing the Tri-Nations and look as though they do not expect to win. They should no longer have any fear.
The traditional Welsh weaknesses have been ironed out extraordinarily quickly. Their scrum was competitive, they were physical around the fringes and their defence was organised, aggressive and nigh on impregnable. Ally that to the traditional strengths of pace, skill and ambition and the rest of the world should be a little scared.
The key thing now for Wales is to realise that this is when the hard work starts. After the 2005 Grand Slam they failed to win a match in 2006. Amusing as this was, it was also a little tragic to see players with such ability playing with no direction or conviction. Gatland and Edwards will not let this happen. They have both known sustained success and know precisely what to do to achieve it.
So hearty congratulations to Wales, and while we are at it to the RFU for bottling it after the World Cup and letting possibly the finest coaching team in the world fall into the hands of one of our rivals. How comforting for us Englishmen to know that the game in this country is run by indecisive invertebrates.
by Stuart Peel
Cipriani the anti-Jonny ascends the throne
It’s almost as if Danny Cipriani is going out of his way to be as different from Jonny Wilkinson as possible. Not content with having been dropped for going to a nightclub last week, he has now sworn on BBC1 at teatime. That puts him in a pretty exclusive club with the likes of the Sex Pistols. There will be plenty of left wing whingers lodging complaints, branding him an oik and yearning for his predecessor, the man whom everyone would like to marry their daughter. To be honest, that probably says more about them than about Cipriani. Personally I thought it was hilarious and rather endearing, but you would never catch Wilko uttering such obscenities.
Cipriani possesses none of the almost crippling self-doubt which haunted the young Wilkinson. If Wilkinson did 99 good things in a game, he would stay up all night worrying about the 1 thing he did wrong. With Cipriani you sense it is the opposite, that he could mess up several times in a row but it would only take one moment of success to reaffirm his faith in his own ability. This is not to accuse him of arrogance or of ignoring errors when he makes them. It is a tremendous attribute to have, the attitude that what is done is done, and to retain the belief that your next action will be outstanding. This is another area in which he is the anti-Jonny.
Cipriani is a very different player and person to Wilkinson but what they share is a huge desire to excel, a tremendous work ethic and the fact that they are pretty good at rugby. Wilkinson’s quest for perfection is well-documented but Cipriani is reputed to always be one of the last men off the training pitch and pays for his own sprint coach in his spare time. Everything in his life is channelled to being the best rugby player he can possibly be and with his natural talent that could be something to behold.
Cipriani was absolutely outstanding against Ireland. Journalists and commentators were bandying around words such as ‘maverick’ but that does him a serious disservice. He possesses very sound basic skills, excellent vision, a sharp brain and good decision-making. He is lightning quick and always has an eye for a gap. It is only in England’s arch-conservative rugby culture that a fly half who likes to run is branded a maverick. If he starts chucking 30 yard Carlos Spencer-esque passes behind his own line when one point up in the last minute (as Spencer has done on occasion), then he may be considered a maverick. As it is he possesses the distribution skills of Charlie Hodgson, the attacking intent of Spencer and the pace of Jerry Guscott. That is a pretty compelling combination with the potential to produce as complete a rugby player as any.
The main worry in Wilkinson’s absence was that England would miss his metronomic goal-kicking but those concerns were allayed by Cipriani’s flawless display. Cipriani retained kicking duties after Wilkinson came on and chose that period to hit a touchline conversion straight through the middle in a swirling wind. Not bad.
I promoted the Cipriani-Wilkinson 10-12 axis before the tournament and it certainly looked decent on Saturday. However, Toby Flood looked rejuvenated when released from Wilkinson’s shadow and played with an imagination and liberty which we had not previously seen this season. With Olly Barkley in excellent form and Shane Geraghty going well between injuries, England suddenly have options in midfield.
I am sure Wilkinson will rise to this challenge and strive to improve himself further but I think he can wave good bye to the 10 shirt for the time being. Wilkinson is a guy who has made the absolute most of his talent through his sheer desire to succeed. Cipriani has more raw talent and if he retains his hunger to the same extent then Wilkinson will struggle to compete. For now it is all about Danny. He got one thing wrong yesterday though. Forget the forwards and Jamie Noon; he should have been f**king man of the match.
by Stuart Peel
Wales emerge covered in glory
The curtain came down on the 2008 Six Nations on Saturday, with Wales earning a thoroughly deserved Grand Slam victory over France.
Personally, I gave them little or no chance before the competition began, and for that I apologise. The way Warren Gatland and his coaches have forged a strong team spirit, solidifying their defence whilst maintaining their creative attacking instincts is remarkable.
Wales aside, the standard of rugby was fairly disappointing. At times, England looked like the worst team of all, yet somehow finished second. Ireland showed glimpses of their former selves, but were generally useless. Scotland appeared to be going backwards under Frank Hadden, but still managed to offload the wooden spoon to Italy, whilst France looked sublime at times, but like schoolchildren at others.
We’ll be reviewing all the action this week on The Rugby Blog, as well as revealing the winners of the Six Nations Betting League.
In the meantime, please share your reactions to the final round, and your reflections on the competition as a whole.
Glory, redemption and pride on the agenda as 6 Nations draws to a conclusion
The 2008 6 Nations draws to a conclusion this weekend and it’s been a strange old affair. Rebuilding was the name of the game after the World Cup with some targeting a fresh start, others aiming for redemption. In the main this has resulted in an awful lot of caginess, some serious stodge, flashes of brilliance but all in all no real narrative running through the tournament.
It is therefore hard to know what to make of this 6 Nations as a whole. Indeed it could easily have been a contest where the victors were merely the least incompetent, the team who deserved to lose least, rather than the team who deserved to win most. Prior to round 4, there was talk of one of the most closely fought and exciting championships in years. And then the whole thing fell flat on its face with 3 seriously poor games.
So thank god for Wales. Without them the competition so far would have been bereft of excitement and have become one long, rather tedious chore. But they have been a revelation. It is a testament to them that the Irish, despite having rediscovered some form, felt that the only way to beat them was to make the game as slow and tedious as possible. That the tournament will be won by the one team who has been prepared to set a solid platform and utilise it with ambition and pace should be a cause of celebration and a lesson which others will hopefully heed.
The three games in the final week of the tournament all have very different subplots. Wales and France are battling it out for glory, England and Ireland for redemption, Scotland and Italy for pride. These factors will have a profound effect on the ways in which these games are played. If you want to see exuberant, care-free, running rugby this weekend, I suggest you go and find a local league game and steer clear of BBC1, at least until 5pm when Wales play France.
Many players are playing for their international futures and 3 of the coaches are fighting to save their jobs. We saw in the latter stages of the World Cup what pressure can do to a team and how it can restrict the game as a spectacle. But while the matches may be hard work at times, they will never be anything less than compelling as the mental and physical battles unfold.
Italy v Scotland – 1pm
Italy and Scotland’s World Cup encounter was mind-numbing and there is little to suggest this game will be any different. On that occasion the carrot was a place in a World Cup quarter final; this time it is to avoid obtaining an extra wooden implement to add to their already-overflowing cutlery drawers. In its own way, this is just as motivating.
It is a crucial game for Frank Hadden. After the progress of his early days in which made Scotland competitive again, he has proved unable to push on and graft new dimensions on to his team. A championship with only a single victory, albeit over England, could spell the end of him.
Nick Mallett is coming to terms with having to do much with little and, while he is under no pressure himself, a first winless championship for Italy since 2005 would be a big step back for the Azzuri. They will fancy themselves against Scotland who, while on a high after last Saturday, are almost defined by their inconsistency.
England v Ireland – 3pm
At Twickenham, I would love to see Brian Ashton release the shackles and allow his team to run free. Sadly, confidence and morale is so low that it would be extraordinary for this to happen. This must surely be Ashton’s last game – many were saying that getting to the World Cup final would be the worst thing to happen to England and so it proved as spineless decision makers at the RFU took the easy decision and retained the status quo. Even if England win on Saturday, they will surely not make the same mistake again.
Ireland become more of an enigma by the game and they produced one of the most bizarre tactical displays I have ever seen in Dublin. Despite the performance of their backs against Scotland, O’Sullivan decided that the only chance Ireland had was to beat Wales exclusively up front. Except that Wales’ pack is vastly improved and Ireland’s is not really that good.
This is a clash of two teams at a very low ebb and if one of them can get into the lead then the other may struggle to come back. The exciting sub-plot is Cipriani against O’Gara, a contrast in style, attitude and experience.
Wales v France – 5pm
Wales against France is the undoubted highlight of the weekend. Wales have ability, confidence and momentum and are playing a balanced yet attractive brand of rugby. Marc Lievremont appears to have had an epiphany, at least in the short term, with the realisation that you need a pack and a platform in order to play the all-court game he is pursuing. This could well be a very different France team to that which we have seen so far and will possess the hardness they have lacked.
Wales have demonstrated what can be done with a talented pool of players allied to firm hands at the helm. Gatland and Edwards have driven their men forward with dynamism and assurance, qualities ostensibly lacking in the likes of Ashton, Hadden and O’Sullivan.
If the occasion doesn’t get to everyone, it could be a classic being as it is a clash of two teams who are at their best when they put as much pace on the game as possible. However Wales at home for the Grand Slam will be very hard to beat.
So what do we think?
Will everyone be cheering for Wales for the Grand Slam or cowering at the prospect of the close harmony singing which will be drifting over the border? Will Ashton or O’Sullivan save themselves? And who will be left holding the wooden spoon? What are your thoughts?
by Stuart Peel
Six Nations Betting League - Round 4 standings
With just a week to go in the Betting League, it is still all to play for. Week 4 was marked by the dramatic decline of ‘johnrdownes’ who gambled his £109 fortune on the dead cert of England to beat Scotland!
‘brandon154′ still leads the way, ‘kelvinlittle’ has fallen back slightly and ‘KemloLongstaff’ and ‘richardbourne20′ are fighting for the third prize.
It’s all or nothing for the last weekend of the championship now. There are three people with £2 left - what price an Iain Balshaw hat-trick?
Wilkinson pays the price as Cipriani picked for his second first start
Brian Ashton has made just one - yes one - change to the England team for their game against Ireland this weekend. But what a change. Jonny Wilkinson has been dropped from the side for the first time in 9 years and is to be replaced by Danny Cipriani at fly half.
Now nobody can argue that Wilkinson played up to international standard on Saturday but the entire team was utterly useless. To pin the blame entirely on Wilkinson smacks of scapegoating and tokenism and Vainikolo, Balshaw, Vickery and several others can consider themselves extremely fortunate.
Still, let’s look forward to Cipriani taking his bow (assuming he makes it to the starting post this time). He can now claim to be England’s first choice at both fly half and full back – not bad for a 20 year old. Let’s see what he can do.
England: I Balshaw (Gloucester); P Sackey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), T Flood (Newcastle), L Vainikolo (Gloucester); D Cipriani (Wasps), R Wigglesworth (Sale Sharks); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps. capt), S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Bath), T Croft (Leicester), M Lipman (Bath), N Easter (Harlequins).
Replacements: G Chuter (Leicester), M Stevens (Bath), B Kay (Leicester), J Haskell (Wasps), P Hodgson (London Irish), J Wilkinson (Newcastle), M Tait (Newcastle).
Change can no longer be delayed as England sink without trace
“Well it started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle, and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that, excellent”. Thus spoke Captain Edmund Blackadder in response to Baldrick’s rather pathetic attempt at war poetry. The words could just as easily be applied to England’s efforts against Scotland, although in fact they contrived to show even less wit and invention than Baldrick.
I would probably have rather have spent an evening in the company of Baldrick than in the North stand of a sodden Murrayfield on Saturday. Watching England produce one of the most insipid performances I have ever seen on a rugby pitch was one thing. Having to endure it sitting next to an Aussie who was supporting Scotland was quite another. He may have bought me a beer at half time, but I am not sure I will ever forgive Brian Ashton and his boys for putting me through that.
A few of us tried to raise our spirits by striking up a chorus of Swing Low at half time as it was clear by that point that this may be the only time we got to do it. And it was almost certain that the 10 minutes England spent absent from the pitch could not possibly have been less productive and entertaining than the 80 minutes they spent on it.
The step backwards England took on Saturday was staggering. It was a truly awful game all round but one team came with a plan, however limited, and carried it out. There was little evidence of England having any sort of plan whatsoever, and if they had one they mislaid it somewhere on the M1 on the trip up.
Each of the previous 3 games had shown a degree of progress. Before the shocking mental collapse against Wales, England had played some of their best rugby for some time. Against Italy, while largely poor, they still strung together some encouraging passages, although the mental flaws were still very much in evidence in a decidedly shaky second half. Against France, it seemed the mental weaknesses had been eliminated and further progress was in evidence as England rediscovered their core values of power and physicality.
In a world of kneejerk reaction, where media and public search hungrily for the sensational headline, we have a tendency to lose patience too quickly and don’t let coaches establish their own structures and develop their team. That England were making progress, albeit painfully slow progress, was sufficient grounds for a degree of cautious optimism.
Those flickering flames of hope were extinguished in the rain, wind and hail of Edinburgh. The period of advance is over and England have regressed to the state they were in after the 36-0 loss to South Africa in the World Cup. They showed no bite, no invention, little physicality and no hope. They kicked incessantly and poorly, were driven back around the fringes, were lumbering and one-paced and showed no appetite to alter their approach and try to change the course of the game. All the best teams have the ability to switch to a plan B in reaction to how the game is unfolding. At no stage did England look remotely capable of doing this.
Ireland should now be treated as a one-off game. England have gone nowhere in this championship and no result against Ireland can change that. They must pick a big, mobile pack built around the exuberant aggression of Sheridan, Stevens and Haskell and must introduce some of the exciting young backs whom Ashton has seemed so reluctant to trust thus far. The current crop have had their chance and failed. There must be no more hesitation before he unleashes Cipriani, Simpson-Daniel and Tait to play a quick game with quick ball, or at least show the ambition to do so. If they do well then at least something positive will have come out of the tournament.
What of Scotland? I asked the chaps behind me if they did not feel a little disappointed and cheated by the fact that Scotland have produced 3 such heartless performances when they are capable of playing with such impressive physical presence and power. Clearly 30 seconds after they had just beaten the old enemy was not quite the right time to ask this and they looked at me as though they had just trodden in me. The point stands though, and Frank Hadden must strive to find out how he can harness that passion more regularly and not just when the English hordes hove into view. It will be disastrous if they lose to Italy but still regard the championship as a success just because they defeated England.
There is no doubt that the sight of the red rose does something to the likes of Scotland and Wales but that is no excuse for England. They should be used to it by now and should deal with it. But the non-performance they produced on Saturday beggared belief. Any advance has been shattered by the knowledge that on any given day the team can play as badly as that. Many of the current team will be haunted by that and fresh blood must be brought into the side to inject some life into proceedings before they too are infected beyond repair by the atmosphere of failure.
by Stuart Peel
Cipriani dropped from England team for ‘inappropriate behaviour’
The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Danny Cipriani, the new star in the England rugby firmament, has been dropped from the England team to play Scotland for ‘inappropriate behaviour’. One wonders how this will affect the youngster in the long term but the most notable short-term impact is the return to the starting 15 of that crowd favourite, Ian Balshaw (well, favourite of the opposition crowd).
At this stage we can only speculate what form this ‘inappropriate behaviour’ took – mooning out of the coach window on the way to the training ground; making Brian Ashton an apple pie bed; doing his ‘elephant impression’ at the team meeting; being found with a voodoo doll of Jonny Wilkinson in a bid to get the 10 shirt?
Reports suggest that he was spotted leaving a nightclub at shortly after midnight last night. If this is the case then the word ‘pillock’ is one which springs immediately to mind. Only a year ago, Andrew Flintoff was dropped by the England cricket team for being seen out 2 days before a crucial World Cup match. Granted he was upside down underneath a pedalo but coaches and sporting authorities do tend to take a dim view of this sort of thing. And before your full debut?
From a purely selfish point of view, I will not be able to say in years to come that I was there when the great Danny Cipriani made his full debut. Instead I suspect I will be reduced to crowing that I was there when the hilarious Ian Balshaw made his final appearance.
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