France 21 - 16 Wales

Wales' hopes of back-to-back grand slams and equalling and then exceeding the continuous games winning streak record came to a shuddering, but still glorious, halt last night.

Predicting the outcome of games against France is always tricky... and yesterday showed just why. France were in disarray with no recognised goal kicker (which showed), a crash centre trying to play the touch position of first five-eighth (which showed in some respects) and so on.

As with last week with England, there was a plan to try and stop the Welsh three-quarters firing. It was different to last week's plan, but even more effective. Unlike last week, there was also a plan to deal with Wales' defensive alignments and the likes of Heymans were more than capable of exploiting the gaps created by their interior players. Then there was Harinordiqy, who doesn't always play well, but yesterday was immense, unbelievably immense. Powell, who didn't have a bad game in terms of runs, tackles, covering play etc. was completely eclipsed on the night by his opposite number. Given Powell is probably going to get a Lions invitation in the summer, high praise indeed. In fact, after last night when he had a good game even when his opposite number was playing probably the best game of his life, just makes him more likely I'd think.

The slightly worrying thing? Wales failed to have a Plan B available and executable. Plan A, to the TV audience at least, was clearly not working - so where was Plan B? I can't believe it looked like Plan A was working on the field either and failing to adapt to that, particularly when there had been a 13-3 lead, is criminal.

France clearly wanted it more on the night. But, in the process will they make Wales a strong side for the next year or two? Learning how to cope with defeats like this should be part of the building of any great team. It happens to all great teams (think NZ in the RWC) so it's not a disaster as long as they can learn from it and go forward with confidence.

France 22 - 13 Scotland and Wales 23 - 15 England

Two victories as expected for the home sides.

Scotland improved. France still played in patches, but only in patches - but were still good enough.

The commentators are saying "England improved" but I'm not sure they did. England desperately spoiled, spoiled again, and again, and some would say they were lucky there were only 2 yellow cards. Wales were good enough to defend against the pressure that England did exert - in that sense they were better than last week, they did manage to exert some pressure - and England despite trying desperately to prevent Wales' attacks weren't actually good enough to do that throughout the game and so weren't able to stop them scoring. The fact that the game was as close as it was is basically due to Joe Worsley tackling his heart out all day long. But he can't be there to tackle every time, he wasn't there to tackle every time, and Wales scored on that basis.

On today's showing there's still a lot of red shirts going for Lions' shirts. Joe Worsley might get one. But Worsley is a player near the end of career. Good luck to him for extending it another cap, but he's not going to the next RWC. Who will replace him?

There are always hard games in a Grand Slam. England v Wales is always harder than it looks - the fact this is the first time Wales have beaten England three times on the trot for the first time is a good indication of that. But, Wales v France doesn't hold much in the way of terrors after today's performance. Wales v Italy shouldn't either... The question really, will be can England or Scotland lift enough to beat Ireland or will it be a GS decider at the end for both sides?

Scotland 13 - 26 Wales

At several points I thought my prediction (Wales by 20 points) was going to be dramatically wrong in the opposite direction. For the first 50 minutes or so Wales were utterly dominant, and Scotland looked like they'd forgotten how to play the game. If Wales had been ruthless and kept playing to their peak, it could easily have been a 40 point margin.

As it was, Wales took their foot off the accelerator, Martyn Williams got sent to the sin bin in a decision I still think was borderline whether it was even a penalty (but I will admit to bias) and that let Scotland start playing faster and looking more dangerous. They found a bit more space on the park, and exploited it, although only once. However, that foot-lifting really only happened once the match was put away, and although there was one moment when the space was exploited and another when it was close, the defence suddenly clicked back into gear and although Scotland tried to attack they lost the ability to penetrate the red line.

Wales also destroyed the Scottish scrum, routinely and often.

Unlike either match yesterday, this was dominant rugby played by a skillful team. They stopped Scotland playing in a way that none of the teams of yesterday managed against their opponents. it didn't make for a match that engaged the neutrals in the way that Ireland v France did, but it did suggest that Wales to win the 6N is a good bet, and a grand slam repeat isn't that unlikely.

Oh, and for the red Lions shirts in the summer? On today's performance expect a lot of players used to wearing red, some used to wearing green. Blue or white your colours? Oops.

Ireland 30 - 21 France

Well, I predicted this one to be close but the other way - France by 5 was my guess.

Unlike the previous match, this was exciting, entertaining, creative, and good. The lead swapped hands several times, and until the last couple of minutes it wasn't clear who was going to win.

Both sides played, at times, imaginative, fast attacking rugby. Both sides, most of the time, defended well when the other side were attacking well, but there were just enough cracks, particularly of French discipline at key times, for the scores to build up. But, although the defences played well, the tackles were usually made and so on, the attacks generally remained well considered and fast and always looking like they could have been successful.

Chabal had a massive game, in the line outs and in particular running with the ball in-hand. Ireland played, overall, better as a team and with that bit more discipline (they gave away no penalties in the first half for example) to deserve the win, but this was a match that, as a neutral, I'd love to watch again - it was pulsing, fun, entertaining. Well worth watching, and really highlighting the deficiencies of England's performance. If England play like this throughout the 6N there won't be any English Lions, and England will only win one match.

England 36 - 11 Italy

Oh how a scoreline flatters to deceive. England were woeful, and Italy for quite large parts of the second half at least, looked like the only creative team on the pitch.

The problem? England scored 1 try (their last) with a simple passing pattern from a line-out, and only just made that. Their other 4 tries came directly from mistakes, sometimes a string of mistakes, made by Italy where, to be frank, my mum and I could have scored.

Pointing fingers in rugby is often not that easy but, sadly, you would have to say Mauro Bergamasco deserves to be on the end of the finger pointing for two tries all on his own. (He may also have made mistakes in another one by being out of position.) Mauro is a very good flanker, playing at scrum half he had a disaster - passes going awry, getting into rucks and letting the ball pop out to an England player and the like. You've got to admire his courage to step up and give it a go, but he isn't a scrum half, and you would probably have to say that this decision cost Italy a chance at winning.

But, Italy weren't the only team at fault. England were slow, incredibly slow, at getting the ball from the ruck. They had the creativity of a wet paper bag, and so would run in a desultory fashion a couple of phases, each one actually letting the Italian defence organise BETTER, and so be forced to kick the ball away. Not every kicking decision was a good one - they got into the habit of kicking and so kicked earlier and earlier, but many of them were good at that point. England made them good though by being so unimaginative.

Brian Moore, a commentator I usually love to hate came out with two very quotable moments. "Tickets here cost £85 don't they? I want a refund" and "It doesn't matter how much you tweak the rules, if the players don't want to play rugby, you can't force them." And that's really how bad England were.

The final touch - when the commentator asked Moore to name the man of the match, my immediate thought was Parese. Moore named Ellis, and I don't have a problem with that, but when the first thought is for the losing captain, it says something about how bad the winning side were.

Wales next week for England. I'm sure they won't be thinking of it yet, but when they watch this, the Welsh will be rubbing their hands, licking their lips and looking to rack up a big score.

Building a team

When you think about a rugby team, and many other teams to be honest, you think about the mix of roles to be filled. Some are obvious - you need a tight-five, a back row, half backs, back three and centres.

If you want to think of it that way, they're the posts you've got to fill.

But watching Gloucester crash out of the Heineken Cup yesterday and last week against Cardiff it's obvious that there's a different way you can consider it.

You have a number of roles that you need to have available to the team. Some of these match closely to the positions - it's very hard to play good rugby without a good tight five, and propping, hooking and locking a scrum, and without someone to get the ball off the ground out to the next player quickly, which is classically the scrum-half's job.

But you have some roles that are more flexible. You need a number of crash-n-bash or hard yard carriers of the ball. In the All Blacks of last year, Kaino, Thompson, Soaialo, Sommerville, Hore, Meealamu, Nonu, Thorn, Muliaina, and somewhat surprisingly Sivivatu fulfilled this role at various times. McCaw attempted it, but it's not his thing to be honest. You need the fetcher role, where McCaw rules supreme, but Soaialo, Thompson, and very surprisingly Smith showed up regularly in this role. You have a tactical kicker role - Sivivatu, Muliaina (of course, job description), Carter (of course - goes with the job description), Cowan (also of course and goes with the job description), Smith all filled this role admirably and expectedly, but Williams and Soaialo kicked often enough and well enough that it wasn't a shock by the end of the year, but it's very unusual for people in those positions.

Most sides have a second ball-starter - the person that shifts the ball from the ground out to the first receiver position. That's typically done by the scrum half 90%+ of the time of course, but sometimes the scrum half is injured, has been tackled and is in the ruck or otherwise unavailable. Wales have Shane Williams who played scrum half to a high level and still trains for the role. French sides usually use the fly-half and scrum-half interchangeably in such situations. The All-Blacks seem to use everyone EXCEPT Carter in such a role, although Carter has filled in on occasion.

Some jobs go on merit - it's usually a 10 that kicks goals, but it can be a 12, 15 or other positions - memorably Eales who played lock was Australia's best goal kicker for a number of years for example. Some jobs now go with the role - why do hookers always throw in to line outs? When I started watching rugby the French were in the process of changing from scrum-halves throwing in to hookers throwing in. I agree it makes sense to have someone in a single-digit number at the thrower, but if your best thrower is a number 6, why not have him do the job and the hooker as a lifter (or more rarely a jumper?).

There are, of course, defensive roles too, but this post is getting long enough.

But, on to Gloucester. Gloucester's problem was a lack of bodies able to do the smash-n-bash yards successfully, combined with enough defenders to stop the other side doing it well. When it comes to playing in the cold and wet, you need probably more of those than normal, in both offensive and defensive roles. You know the other side are going to pick and drive, pass one-out to a big runner who will crash into your line, hopefully over the gain line, and set the ball up to recycle it. The conditions (driving rain, deep mud and all) don't really make for regular use of flowing moves along the back line (although to be fair Biarritz tried them and scored on the back of one, as did Gloucester). But Biarritz wone because they could try the high risk moves when the situation meritted it, but could get the ball and smash it forward a metre or two at a time for phase after phase after muddy phase. They weren't likely to score from this (and they didn't) but they were perfectly positioned to stop Gloucester scoring, because of course Biarritz kept the ball, and to make it less likely that Gloucester would score when they got the ball back - and Gloucester didn't score in the second half - because they were tired, slow, and rarely given the ball in a good position to counter-attack. Biarritz could, and did, grind the ball forwards and choose whether to keep grinding or whether they'd got the ball far enough they could pin Gloucester back and let their wingers chase the ball forcing a hurried kick that ended up with Biarritz most times gaining yards, throwing in to the line-out and starting again...

It wasn't a great match to be honest, but the conditions dictated it was never going to be. But Biarritz could play rugby suitable to the occasion, and that let them, when the circumstances permitted, to also break out and score. Gloucester, who play such a nice game when the conditions are good, couldn't adapt to the mud, and you would say were really fairly lucky to be able to score the 10 points they did. It's telling they came in the early and middle part of the first half whilst the players were still energetic, warm and willing enough to throw the ball about successfully - an extra 10 minutes of grind from Biarritz (who scored 17 of their points in the first 15 minutes, and the other 7 from a charge-down) meant they never looked like threatening for the rest of the match.

There are problems at Gloucester - until Spring is sprung (and Tom Lehrer fans are poisonoing pigeons) and the ground gets harder again, they're vulnerable. They won't always be playing in cold, wet bogs of course, and they won't always lose, but they'll always be at risk.

Interesting side note here - If you look at most of the current good international sides: Australia, New Zealand, Wales and lets throw France into the mix too they all have a number of players who play well in multiple roles. They all play well in their expected role-positions, but it's a rare player in their squads who ONLY plays the roles expected of their position (Woodcock would be an obvious example, but he plays superbly in his role). The other sides don't have that unexpected range of skills. South Africa tend not to do this, but have good-to-great players in all roles and work well as a team, the 2003 England didn't do it either, but the bulk of the sides that can do it well keep their team work of course, but can suddenly, unexpectedly do things well from the "wrong" places. You're not going to drop your back three each time Williams gets the ball in a kicking position, unlike when Carter gets the ball, but perhaps you should. Of course if you do, and Williams also gets tackled and offloads, (which he can also do quite nicely) then you've got an AB winger with space to run too...

Sic Transit MMVIII

What an odd year it's been.

New Zealand reappointed Graeme Henry, and let Robbie Deans escape to coach "West Island" (or Australia as it's more commonly known). In the short term that has proven to be a good choice, in the longer term, who knows? Robbie Deans record in Super-14 suggests he's a brilliant coach, and 4 years to work with the Wallabies should let him weave his magic somewhat. However, the All Blacks bounced back from the disappointment and, with the odd hiccough, smashed through the Tri-Nations in convincing style, won a Grand Slam on their November tour - and for the first time in their history played test matches on 5 consecutive weekends, winning all 5 (they beat Australia in Hong Kong as a Bledisloe extra before their grand slam started).

Wales went from ignominy and exciting the RWC before the quarter finals to winning a 6N grand slam too. It wasn't just a flash in the pan either - come the November tests they were the only team that lived with New Zealand (albeit for only the first half), South Africa (which could and probably should have been a win for Wales), and were the only NH side to win, beating Australia (although France pushed them damn close too).

England, happily for me, went the other way. From a surprise appearance and a close-run thing in the RWC final, they slumped, spectacularly - mid-table in the 6N, thumped in all three November internationals against recognised sides, and to be honest struggling against a scratch team from the Pacific Islands. It would be interesting to see the Pacific Islanders and maybe Argentina incorporated into a SH five nations (maybe the penta-nations to keep the naming convention) because the Pacific Islanders have the talent, but not the chances to play together to make a solid international team.

The build-up to the 2011 RWC has started too, with preliminary rounds being played already, and the draw for the pools having being made.

Then there's the ELVs. The SH sides have played under 3 different sets of laws this year - their early version of the ELVs, the old laws for the June/July tours, and the IRB's global ELVs for the November tours. Oh, and in the case of NZ and Australia, courtesy of that Hong Kong test, the current SH ELVs which are the IRB ones with offsides at tackles, free kicks rather than penalties and another tweak.

My take? I think the IRB and NH old fogeys need to be shot. Their version of the laws, combined with the new interpretation that the English referees in particular have fallen in love with to the point of insanity, has stifled the game in the NH, particularly England, into a largely sterile contest. The SH by contrast seems to be producing even fitter, more aware players, widening the gulf between the two hemispheres (with the exception of Wales where the players play the game with verve and passion even as the WRU officials try desperately to stifle it, but nothing new there!). The SH contests are also producing rugby that's more fun to watch - that isn't supposed to be the aim of it, but if you lose your audiences, you lose your game very quickly, certainly as the big money spectacle it's become.

And finally, a rant that isn't new - big money in the English and French game.

If you look away from England, France and to a lesser extent Italy, there are small numbers of foreign players (as low as 0 in Australia, maybe a dozen in all of NZ and SA). The Magners League has more foreign players, but there are still strong cores of each of the teams from Ireland/Wales/Scotland although most teams have a few overseas international players. But if you come to France and England, the situation changes - just about every team has a truck load of internationals. In an earlier post I wondered how many of the England-qualified players would make a premiership top-XV. I *still* think the number approximates to 0. In fact, I think they'd struggle to get many players in a second-XV.

There was a comment in an analysis program I watched, which said that world-class players are those in the top three players in their position in the world. I think top three is probably harsh, so let's say top 5.

If you restrict yourself to players still eligible for international selection (so no Kiwis playing abroad except Carter who is on sabbatical), who would come from England in your top 5? There are NH players that make my top 5 - Martyn Williams, Andy Powell, Lee Byrne, Dwayne Peel (if he gets back to top form based on his end of year performance), Hook, Henson, Mike Blair, Shane Williams, O'Connel, Jenkins, and normally I'd list some French players here, and I think I should, but I'm lacking names and inspiration. But England players? Forget it, at least this year. Next year... with more experience Delon Armitage could make it, Flood or Cipriani might, but not this year.

But, looking at that list, perhaps it's no surprise that Wales are the best NH side we've got - there's 8 top-5 in the world players in that list. There are others lurking around too - Halfpenny might make it in next year. The other Welsh props aren't bad, just not top five and so on.

Predictions for next year? You'll have to wait a day or two for them I'm afraid.