Contrasting wonderful matches

Wales v Scotland proved to be a wonderful match because it was so close. For 60 minutes you'd have to say that Scotland were comfortably in control and deservedly so. In the last 20 minutes Wales started to claw their way back, in the last 10 they started to look like they might win. A decision with the scores tied that there was time to restart was made - if Scotland had kicked the ball out you'd have to think there wouldn't have been time to set the scrum but they kicked it properly and Wales scored to win.

Two yellow cards for the Scots over the last ten minutes clearly affected that outcome.

It will be interesting to see what the other commentators think of the first 60 minutes. Wales' vaunted and talented backs failed to fire, to some extent so did their back row. Speaking personally I'm inclined to lay the blame for this at the feet of Cooper, the stand-in scrum half. He had an unfortunate tendency to take a step or two sideways and often slightly backwards before passing. This has the effect of letting the defenders be a step or two closer to the rest of the backs putting them under that much extra pressure. This has the tendency to knock on and cause the backs to dump off to the forwards in bad positions, with the forwards flat-footed and tackled backwards, which reduces the things the back row can do because they're running backwards each time. Other players made mistakes, often frustrating ones, but they were odd mistakes rather than systemic ones and players will make mistakes, it's the nature of the game.

Another thought - Wasps have struggled in the last season and a bit in the Premiership. In particular their defence has been punctured time and again. The Wales squad are more talented than the Wasps squad overall, but so are their opponents and the international sides are working out how to unpick the Welsh defence. Do they need to change the systems to account for this?

France v Ireland was brilliant for a different reason. France were brilliant. Ireland, sadly, were not. But, as always, France in full flow are compelling and wonderful to watch and this game was no different. This France was Les Bleus that put everyone to the sword the attacking was fluid and precise, the defending was aggressive and precise. If France play like this for the rest of the 6 Nations they are going to win. If they can play like this for the next year or so, they could win the RWC even though it is in New Zealand.

It appears from news reports that Tom Evans has a serious back injury. Let us all hope that it is not as bad as feared and that he makes a full and speedy recovery.