Yawn, snooze... Oh, I mean Italy v Scotland and England v Ireland

After a thriller yesterday, we have two of the dullest, most turgid and forgettable matches it's been my misfortune to see in my life. Particularly sad since the Super-14 matches today, with their full-strength ELVs also produced two wonderful matches, one in terrible conditions - but of course the stuffy morons that run the game up in the NH won't think of the spectators...

Italy v Scotland was at least cleaner than Italy's last match. They try to play like England in many ways - 10-man rugby and shut the opponents down and turn it into a arm-wrestle. Last time out Ireland were good enough to get the ball out and score, next time you've got to believe that Wales will be that good too. Scotland just about managed it, but infrequently enough that the match was grinding and tedious as phase play more or less vanished in a welter of scrums, penalties, free-kicks and the like. Scotland let themselves get pulled in too often, and gave away their own share of silly penalties too.

And then there was England v Ireland. England seemed to have a mission to break BOD - and despite that he was one of the few players on either side to really shine. Carney had a stormer too in fairness. But, other than that, Ireland didn't fire, and although that's rarely down to one player, you would have to point the finger at ROG today: he was, again, out of sorts - kicking poorly, passing poorly and running poorly. Failing on all parts of the number-10 curriculum (although tackling well sometimes). The Irish pack creaked and groaned at times, the props can be beaten and England worked them over a few times, but mostly the scrums were balanced - at least in part because the English props cheated to try and force the upper hand and Joubert (who was blind about hits on BOD, some of which looked pretty penalisable to me. Flutey might be lucky to escape being cited for what looked like a shoulder-charge to the head rather than an attempted tackle for example)) spotted the props playing silly buggers and blew it up.

I rather suspect the headlines will be full of the England yellow card trouble. After the Wales match someone in the England coaching set-up suggested that the referee had been one-eyed against England. I'm biased but didn't agree - Paddy O'Brien (the referee's boss) said he was disappointed to hear such comments, particularly since Kaplan's performance had been independently rated as good. I would agree. If the idiot opens his mouth this week, he will be even more one-eyed than Brian Moore at his worst. England again got hit with two yellow cards. One was for repeated (I think it was the fourth or fifth) penalty in the 5m out from the try-line area in a couple of minutes. You really can't complain about that, except to wonder if the referee could have gone to his pocket sooner!

The other was for one of the more cynical and stupid hits that you'll see on a rugby pitch. A prop was standing up from a ruck, and in contact with another player, twisting his back and opening his ribs. Danny Care for some reason decided to run in from about 7m out and wallop the guy in the back with his shoulder when he was totally defenseless. Care went off looking startled that he'd even been penalised. He should be more startled it wasn't given as a red card!

So, again, England play 20 minutes with 14 players. And this time they lose by 1 point to a very out of sorts Ireland. You have to wonder how well they'd have done if they'd kept all their players on the pitch. You have to wonder, as well, what the players, particularly Care were thinking of. The Vickery card you can argue was one of those times it was worth taking the card (although Ireland did score their try moments later), because he was clearly stopping a try and it wasn't guaranteed his side would give one up in the time he was away. But the Care card was just stupid.

One thing that was interesting though - Austin Healey's commentary a couple of times. England had a couple of attacking looking moves that ended up petering out. His comments about why were biting, players not off-loading in set moves when they should know where their support is, players all clustering to the wrong side despite the move having opened a blind side and so on. Quality backs, and at international level you'd expect the forwards to do this too to some extent surely, should be able to pass having drawn the man to someone they know is there shouldn't they? If you've got a move that's run from your right to left, and has the 11, 12 and 15 all going that way, pulling the opposition's defenders across, is it too much to expect that 9, 10, 13, and maybe one of 6, 7, 8 cut back to the left? They all failed to do this - cramming 15 players into half the pitch. Ireland defended that side with 12 players, because their front row was lurking trying to defend the other side. Can 9, 10, 13 not beat 1, 2, 3 for pace in half a pitch width? Well, we'll never know because they were too dumb to find out.

Lions watch? Still no white shirts. No obvious blue shirts. BOD beats out Shanklin on this weekend's performance. Welsh front row, Irish/Welsh second and back row. Tommy Bowe might beat out Leigh Halfpenny, and BOD beats out Shanklin from an otherwise Welsh backline. Stephen Jones didn't play that well, but is still head and shoulders the best of the 10's from the home nations.

Unless Scotland pull off an upset next time out - which is certainly possible - Wales v Ireland will be to decide the championship, and to see if Ireland can win their second ever Grand Slam. If France beat England, certainly possible, they might be in the mix too, able to rack up the points difference with a win over Italy, but only if Wales can win in Ireland.