Le Crunch

So, England beat France again. To be honest, despite the screaming plaudits I'm hearing, it was more a case of the English tight five beating up the French tight five at scrum time, and France's back three, particularly Rougerie, having a shocker. They conspired to give England easy defensive moves, penalties at the scrum and so on. Will it save Ashton? Probably. Is it a new leaf? I'm inclined to say not, but time will tell.

Both new scrum-halves had good games, despite the problems France had at the scrum. The very English commentators are now talking England v Ireland as the decider for the Six Nations. They could still be right, but the only way that will matter is if Ireland beat Wales in a fortnight. Will they do it? It's certain they can, but will they?

To be honest, I don't know. I slept through most of the Scotland v Ireland match. The bits I did see, Scotland had the ball a lot and no clue about how to score tries still. Ireland only played for about half the match, but sliced Scotland open relatively easily and scored, although not that fluently. Wales will attack better than Scotland, and defend most of the time better than Scotland. Wales are still getting better. Ireland are still getting worse. Will Wales be good enough on the day to do the job at Croke Park? Yes, I think so. After that, if I'm right, all these commentators will be swallowing their words. If I'm wrong, will I? Well no... I'm still saying "I think so" after all, and they're saying "It will be..." mind you, I bet they don't pay pundits to be uncertain.