Six Nations starts today
 

I think its pretty open. Wales are still a good team, how will Jonno's England fare in the first real tests after a shocking Autumn, how far as the rebuilding project in France come along, is Ireland's golden generation finished, and Scotland and Italy are always tough and dangerous in their home games... can any Northern Hemisphere team get up to the level of the Southern Hemisphere teams???

The boys need a good start against Italy today... need to at least hold our own against a tough Italian pack and score some tries

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot!

Well, we can't be WORSE than we were against the southern hemisphere sides.

Please God, I hope we can't.

If our performance against the 'boks was anything to judge by, Italy might get their Six Nations campaign of to a record breaking win today.

We're gonna get smoked.

No matter, the rugby league season is starting - proper rugby is back!

;)

ok you just became my new best friend

Ireland France was a great spectacle of running rugby

England Italy - a poor team beating a very poor team. First win in the bag, but all Andy Goode can do is kick away possession, and if they hadnt played their flanker at scrum half, we wouldnt have had such an easy day.

Because I predicted England would get smoked or because I like league?

Who's your team? NRL I take it?

both!

we always loathe the english..even more than the kiwis!

yeah NRL for me. my lowly and dismal Canterbury Bulldogs took home the wooden spoon last season though. it was upsetting to see such a successful team fall apart at the seams so quickly after so many years of being at the top.

what about yours HT?

St. Helen's is my team. 2 trophies last season but missed the treble at the last hurdle against Leeds.

I watched a bit of NRL last season - don't have a team down there per se but watched the Storm play a couple of times and they were very good.

Well, we'll do better this year. We have bought well and should be quite competitive.

btw, I was almost going to say you would be a bulldogs supporter (when highthief asked). Call it racial profiling ;)

edit - sorry SF - we really have gone offtopic. Ummm - go the waratahs/wallabies (shit...still offtopic).

Shane Williams might be out - thats a shame isnt it? :)

The Welsh fans are aleady full of it, pride comes before a fall boyo's... England always bring their best game in the big game.

i havent really kept up at all with this other than to hear that the welsh wooped some scottish butt the other day.

spins - well you're almost right mate. i was a balmain tigers fan through and through as a kid. super league ruined everything and the amalgamation between western suburbs and balmain tigers to form west tigers was the end of the road for me.

so i went back to the lowest common denominator, and joined the crew down at canterbury.

well, this isnt sour grapes - because I think Wales probably were the better side, but both sin binnings were very poor decisions in the England Wales game. Yet another inadequate perfomance by Kaplan.

Ireland v Italy was one of the worst games Ive seen in a while. Italy are really struggling the last couple of years, and these crazy new rules outlawing forward play are hurting them.

O'Driscol's try was fantastic!

Sadly England let the Welsh back into the game yesterday, and paid the price.

fucks sake! Ireland were awful, England were worse, ref was poor, and England threw it away with indiscipline again.

I'll tell you what, I wouldnt want to be in Danny Care's shoes when he got back in the dressing room though.

Johnno didnt look happy, did he?

Borthwick isnt up to it as captain, Andy Goode isnt 13 stone (seriously, thats what he's listed as!) and Vickery is too old. Julian White gave us a lot more when he came on. And how fucking slow is Nick Easter?

At one point, they cut to Johnno's face, and he clearly said "For Fuck's Sake", and the comentator said "well, I can't read lips, but he's clearly not happy".

England were a shower of shit. :no:

I know that Johnno has to defend his captain and its right that he does - but everyone can see that Borthwick isnt a captain.

The BBC report said something like "too often when people around him are losing their head, he keeps his down"... and thats a perect summing up. But where we really suffered against Ireland was the lack of power and pace going forwards from the back row. And a lot of fucking aimless kicking - but in the first half we did some quick ball and we did do well at the breakdown, but we never really looked like breaking through. Borthwick is an honest player, but he's not a captain. Real leaders like Johnno or Big Lol have an aura around them which he simply doesnt.

We cant dominate up front like we used to... I'd be tempted to play White and Sheridan at the same time, they might not make many 15 yard gains in open play but that would be a rock solid scrum. Easter needs to go, Haskell needs to go, Tindall needs to go.

Bloody hell.

The Italians nearly had the Welsh!

Both games were closer than expcted today. Scotland played well. England cant win the Six Nations now anyway.

OK - have the All-Blacks stolen the English shirts and it's really a bunch of Kiwis pounding France into the dirt at Twickenham?

It's good to give the French a caning at least. We were pretty good and they were pretty bad.

Still cant believe Andy Goode gets near a test team.

It's bloody annoying to watch them play so well today, when they played so badly before. Nice to see the win though.

A lot of positives definitely. I agree with Croft as MOM. He needs to be first choice, and play Haskell at 8. Easter did ok today but he's too slow and doesnt do enough. I think Shaw was really the only guy who didnt have a good game, but once Goode was in the second half you could really tell the difference. At his best he is barely good enough, and when he plays badly he is shocking. And who is he trying to kid listing himself on the stats as 13 stone! If Andy Goode weighs 13 stone I'll be shagged Rachel Bilson tonight. The last time he weighed 13 stone was probably when he was 15 years old.

Good performance from Vickery also, but not sure how well our scrum would have stood up without some funny refereeing - I'd still prefer White just because him next to Andy Sheridan probably gives us the most formidable front row in the game - although White might not do as much in the open.

Bring on Scotland - bring back Kennedy in the second row and hopefully Sackey will be back. Tindall hopefully will be replaced by basically anyone capable of doing something other than running into contact every time he has the ball. Fair dues, he is a good honest player who always gives 100% and defends hard, but he doesnt have the skill. The key is to string two good performances together.

Armitage looked really good too. He still makes errors, but his up side is really good. Big boot, a lot of pace, and brings a lot of excitement to the back line.

Next year we might be in a position to put the bloody Welsh in their place (ie - subserviant and soundly battered by England)

My team would be

Sheridan
Mears
White
Borthwick (c)
Kennedy
Croft
Worsley
Haskell
Ellis
Barkley
Cueto
Flutey
Tait
Sackey
Armitage

Nice game against Scotland, and finishing second in the table was a plus. Interesting that we had the highest total points difference. I can see a firm foundation there for the ext 6 Nations, and maybe even for NZ-2011.

The Ireland/Wales game as brilliant, nail-biting right to the end.

Good win against Scotland. Sometimes you do need to be able to win ugly, and even though for a bot of the second half the Scots fought back hard, you always felt we had more tries in us. What a tackle by the Monye on the young Scots flier in the first half.... I was actually saying "he's in, shit..." when he came out of nowhere and got enough of him to put him out of bounds.

I think Tindall was again a weak spot (he passed the ball on for the final try, but 100% honestly - he did his work in defence but when he had the ball did you see him do ANYTHING other than run into contact?)

But other than a few individuals who maybe we should look to replace to strengthen the team (Easter, Tindall, Goode) I think Johnno is starting to get his passion across to these boys.

I would think Sheridan, Armitage and Flutey all will be first choice for the Lions.